The Federal Government and the organised labour has again failed to reach
a consensus over the new minimum wage of workers in the country.
Chairman of the Tripartite Committee and former Head of Service of the
Federation, Ms Ama Pepple, disclosed this to reporters on Monday in Abuja.
Ms Pepple made the disclosure following a meeting of the committee which
lasted for more than nine hours with representatives of the government and
labour leaders in attendance.
The meeting held at the office of the Secretary to the Government of the
Federation, Mr Boss Mustapha.
According to her, the committee will have to submit both the N30,000
minimum wage demanded by the organised labour and the N24,000 proposed by
the government to President Muhammadu Buhari for onward submission to the
National Assembly.
Meanwhile, the government is optimistic that the labour will not proceed
on the planned industrial action scheduled to commence on Tuesday.
But the leaders of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union
Congress (TUC) have yet to take a decision whether or not the strike would
go as planned.
The tripartite meeting held a day after the labour leaders failed to
attend a meeting convened by the government to continue negotiations on
the national minimum wage.
The government had, however, continued the dialogue with the organised
private sector.
Mr Boss Mustapha, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige,
as well as the Minister of Finance, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, represented the
government at the meeting.
The discussion followed a statement credited to Dr Ngige who had announced
that the negotiation would be trailed by the meeting of the National
Tripartite Minimum Wage Committee which held today.