•Tells govt to finalise negotiation before December

Stories by Bimbola Oyesola 08033246177

The Federal Government may have more to contend with in the area of industrial unrest, if it fails to commence immediate negotiations on the minimum wage, concluding it before the end of December 2017.

The threat coming from the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU) may not be an empty one bearing in mind that the union had just last Thursday suspended for a month a five-week nationwide strike in conjunction with two other non-teaching staff unions in universities, the National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT) and Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU).

The union, at its national executive council meeting in Abuja on Wednesday, called on the federal government to give mandate to the tripartite committee on minimum wage to start work immediately and finish before the end of the year, failing which it has called on the NLC to mobilise workers to demand for the minimum wage. President of NASU, Chris Ani, said that the federal government has up to this moment refused to show good faith in its dealings with workers on the issue of the minimum wage.

Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, had in June, at this year’s International Labour Conference (ILC) in Geneva, Switzerland, assured labour leaders that the committee would be convened in two weeks, which ought to have been before the end of June.

Ani lamented that workers were under the burden of a slave wage, which cannot meet their daily needs.

“They cannot nourish their children and cannot educate them because the ruling class is bent on the commercialisation of education,” he said.

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He reasoned that now that government has announced that the country is out of recession, nothing should stall the review of the minimum wage.

He said, “In the last couple of weeks, there have been series of media reports that Nigeria is now out of recession. We have also watched government officials on television confirming and celebrating what we have read and heard in the media.

“We, therefore, join other Nigerians to congratulate the government and the relevant officials for bringing the country out of recession. While it lasted, issues that had to do with workers’ welfare were relegated to the background. The period was characterised by wage freeze, increase in job insecurity, shortfalls and delays in the payment of salaries and withholding of other benefits of workers.

“That is why we are congratulating government for bringing the country out of recession. However, we in NASU will only join them in the celebration when workers’ welfare improves, jobs are secured, salaries are paid in full as and when due, wage increase is de-frozen and other withheld benefits are paid.”

Condemning what it termed government’s ineptitude to grow the productive sector that would create jobs for the unemployed, the NASU president warned that the union would resist any policy that is aimed at taking away the jobs of its members, thereby sending them into the labour market.

NASU also berated governors who were still owing workers in their states, despite several bailouts.

It charged the NLC to direct workers in the affected states to ensure a total closedown of states where salaries are owed for more than two months.