The Organizational Labour claims to be pushing for a 75,000 minimum wage increase each year for Nigerian workers.
According to Labour, it is crucial that the minimum wage paid to employees accounts for annual inflation increases.
Why can’t we reflect the inflation on an annual basis, as we are pushing for Labour is that instead of you (the government) waiting for five years to raise the minimum wage, you will now look at the inflation of the previous five years and try to adjust things? TUC boss Festus Osifo said on Channels Television’s Politics Today on January 1, 2025.
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Members of the organization, as well as their colleagues in the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), have started discussions in this regard, according to the TUC president.
“For example, we have entered January 2025, by the 15th of January 2025, the National Bureau of Statistics is going to release the inflation figure for December”, he explained.
“So, what we are pushing for as Labour is that, if for example, the inflation figure is 35%, apply that 35% to the ₦70, 000 minimum wage so that it will become reflective of what the true value is.
” When we get to 2026, you will also do similar application. That is actually what we are pushing. We shouldn’t be waiting for five years.
The new Act allows for those adjustments to be made in three years, but we could do them systemically by applying the minimum wage’s inflation rate as of December of the previous year.
This is a position we are canvassing this year, too. The conversation was started last year, and it will continue in 2025.
After months of drawn-out negotiations, the Federal Government and labor unions finally reached a minimum wage of $70.000, which President Bola Tinubu later approved.
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