EDITORIAL: FG must avert labour strikes

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), the two main labour unions in Nigeria, embarked on an avoidable and debilitating nationwide industrial strike that paralysed the country on June 2 and June 3, 2024. The action was due to the mistrust and disagreement between the government and the organised labour. It led to total blackout across the country as the national grid was unplugged. Flights were disrupted because the unions blocked the roads to the airports. Tertiary institutions had to shut classrooms. Health workers joined the strike, causing hospitals to remain shut over that period. The strike led to frustration among ordinary Nigerians who were at its receiving end.

The strike was the fourth in the last one year since President Bola Ahmed Tinubu took over the leadership of the country. The National Secretary of the TUC, Nuhu Toro, said the action was to demand fair wages, noting that the action was “a joint decision and a total one. We are demanding a living wage, not just a new minimum wage; reduction of the current electricity tariff.”

Before the strike, the engagement between labour and the government over the new minimum wage broke down. While labour asked for N494,000 ($329) as minimum living wage, the government insisted on paying N60,000 ($40), an amount that cannot buy a bag of rice. At the moment, the minimum wage is N30,000 ($20).

The strike lasted two days but its negative impact on ordinary Nigerians was monumental, as the economy suffered and the society was disoriented.

We commend the labour movement for promptly calling off the strike initially planned to be indefinite and accepting to engage the government further on the issue in order to reach a compromise.

The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, said, “The federal government’s new minimum wage (N60,000) proposal amounts to a 100 per cent increase on the existing minimum wage which was last reviewed in 2019. Labour, however, wanted N494,000, which would increase by 1,547 per cent on the existing wage. The sum of N494,000 national minimum wage which labour is seeking will cumulatively amount to the sum of N9.5trn bill to the Federal Government of Nigeria. Nigerians need to understand that whereas the government is desirous of ample remuneration for Nigerian workers, what is most critical is that President Tinubu will not encourage any action that could lead to massive job losses, especially in the private sector, which may not be able to pay the wage demanded by the organised labour.”

It is unfortunate that the government allowed the issue of a new wage to degenerate up to the point where the organised labour had to call its members out for another nationwide strike. Without argument, it is clear that what the government pays as minimum wages is ridiculously low and falls below the average minimum wage in Africa. There is no argument about the fact that a wage is not about the quantity of money, but what such money can buy.

In 1974, the minimum wage was about N60, which amounts to about $228 today. In 2009, when the minimum wage was N18,000, the value was $111, which is five times the value of the current N30,000 per month.

Therefore, the demand for the minimum wage increase is not anchored on the quantity of the naira, but on the purchasing power of the wage.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) is clear about the need for a regular review of wages every five years; that is in the worst case. Some countries review salaries every two years, especially after considering the rate of inflation and the value of their currency. The Nigerian government must develop this systemic approach to minimum wage increase to ensure that Nigerians do not have to embark on industrial actions before it reviews salaries.

It is also very important that the government makes a deliberate effort to bring down the prices of food items and other essential goods. The current inflationary trend is becoming too wild for comfort. At the rate in which the prices of items are skyrocketing, even the N250,000 that labour is advocating may not be enough as minimum wage. It has become imperative for the government to put in place other fiscal and monetary measures to bring down the prices of goods and shore up the value of the naira. The devaluation of the naira is actually the devaluation of labour in Nigeria; a step that many governments do not take until measures to cushion their effects are put in place.

We, therefore, call on the government to take action on the issue of the wage increase seriously and arrive at a genuine consensus with labour to avoid any further industrial action.