The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, said on Thursday it would meet with the federal government on how workers could survive the recent hike in the pump price of petrol.<\/p>\n
According to the labour movement, the current price of petrol had eroded the gains of the yet-to-be implemented N70,000 new national minimum wage.<\/p>\n
President of NLC, Joe Ajaero, who disclosed this at the opening ceremony of a two-day of \u201cMinimum Wage Implementation Workshop, Southern Zone, with the theme \u2018Strategies for Effective Implementation of the 2024 National Minimum Wage Act, in Lagos,\u201d insisted that organised labour was deceived by President Bola Tinubu into accepting the N70,000 minimum wage to forestall petrol price increase.<\/p>\n
He advised the government to address the excruciating hunger, poverty, and frustration of Nigerians \u201cbefore things go out of hand,\u201d lamenting that Nigerians were really suffering.<\/p>\n
While giving insight into the conversations with President Tinubu before the N70,000 minimum wage was agreed, the NLC president lamented that Nigerians appeared to have started adjusting to the situation on ground because the government had been distracting organized labour.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a tactic to distract our attention, to call us names, level allegations against us over cybercrime, financing terrorism, sponsoring terrorism and the rest.<\/p>\n
\u201dThose things have paid off because while we are facing those allegations, this issue of pump price has remained.<\/p>\n
\u201cI repeat, we were betrayed by Mr President, That statement we issued over our being betrayed is being denied by officials of the government. I am repeating it that we were betrayed. Some of you here were at the meeting when Mr President said, Ajaero you are the problem.<\/p>\n
\u201dSince we said subsidy is gone. You don\u2019t want to allow us to increase again. If you allow me to increase we will pay you that N250, 000. Immediately I came out that day I was on Arise Television I repeated what Mr President told us.<\/p>\n
\u201dThe president said I am giving you one hour to decide on this and get back to me. He said he was going back to his office and we should decide over this (between N250, 000 minimum wage and petrol pump price hike).<\/p>\n
\u201cWe said no, sir, Mr. President; we can\u2019t be holding our meeting here in your office. Let us take a one week break and come back and report back to you. He said, \u201cOkay, I am traveling, but I will cancel my trip for one week.\u201d That was how we adjourned for one week.<\/p>\n
\u201dIf you followed the trend of those negotiations, we adjourned for one week. And when we came back after consultations, we said to Mr President, no, we can\u2019t allow you to increase to any length because that will affect all Nigerians and we will be seen to be selfish. \u201dEven the N250,000 will not be useful to us. If we continue to increase salary, it will make a mess of our economy, and then you continue to increase pump price. In fact, N250,000 may not be enough to even buy fuel.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr President equally offered to fund our trip to tour some West African countries, where the least price of petrol is selling at N1,700. He even said in Cameroon that they are selling N2000 and that none of them has a refinery, but they are getting their products from Nigeria.<\/p>\n
\u201dWe responded by telling him to check the borders because that is why they are smuggling those products to those countries. \u201dWe equally said no because Nigerians will say they have given us money; they won\u2019t say it\u2019s money for us to visit those West African states.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the adjourned date, we went there and told Mr President, we are not here for an increase in pump price or negotiation. So let\u2019s concentrate on the minimum wage. Some of these things informed the acceptance of N70,000 minimum wage, which some of us here were saying was not enough. But some people are still saying they cannot pay that N70, 000.<\/p>\n
\u201dThis is the dilemma all of us are facing. In fact, the private sector employers in our meeting gave us a tough time. They refused to shift, and they wanted to vote with the state government, federal government, and the private sector on one side, all against labour on the other side. These were some of the things that necessitated all those walkouts you saw.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, said on Thursday it would meet with the federal government on how workers could survive the recent hike in the pump price of petrol. According…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":112472,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n