The general strike on September 27 and 28 over a new National Minimum Wage will, going by antecedence, be the first of many strikes to come. This strike was not about a new wage per se or figures; not about agreement or disagreement, not to talk about implementation. It was merely to demand that the Buhari administration which has an unenviable history of cancelling promises, returns to the negotiation table.
If a general strike had to be called just to pressure government to talk with workers and employers on a New National Minimum Wage in accordance with the constitution, imagine the struggles that will need be waged to get the new wages implemented across all sectors and levels of government.
Some have argued that this period is too close to the February, 2019 general elections and therefore, not ideal for negotiations as the attention of the politicians would be focused on the elections. My response is that there is no better time than now, or better still, nearer the election date. This is because for almost all our electoral politicians, elections are about capture of state power and the resources of the country.
So, elections are a
consuming passion and politicians are united in ensuring everything must be
done to let the election beat go on. This is the time politicians are most
vulnerable, and also the season they put up shows of being nice, considerate
and sympathetic to the electorate. In any case, constitutionally, a New
National Minimum Wage is a quinquennial law; the last was in 2011, so there
should have been a new one two years ago.
Historically in Nigeria , new
wages flow with the political tide. The first general wage increase was in 1945
following the end of the Second World War in which our British colonial masters
were battered, bruised and financially crippled. A general strike, the first in
the country, followed. It lasted 45 days with the colonialists acceding to the
workers’ demands. The next one was in 1964 when after protracted negotiations
under Justice Adeyinka Morgan, it was agreed in April that the region-based
minimum wages in the country be increased from the subsisting N7.80 and N15.17,
to N22 and N15.17. Government refused; about four months to the 1964 general
elections, the workers went on a general strike. It lasted thirteen days with
the Tafawa Balewa Government caving in to the workers’ demand.
The three-year Civil War
ended in 1970 and to meet workers agitations given the hyperinflation in the
country, the General Yakubu Gowon regime granted an Interim Award based on the
recommendations of a Wages Committee headed by Chief Simeon Adebo. Hence it was
known as the Adebo Award. A comprehensive Wage Review Panel headed by Chief
Jerome Udoji in 1974, recommended a new minimum wage of N60. It was referred to
as the Udoji Award. The military handed over power to civilians on October 1,
1979 and the new President Shehu Shagari government increased the minimum wage
to N100.
But the Nigeria Labour
Congress (NLC) led by Alhaji Hassan Adebayo Sunmonu demanded a new wage of
N300. It followed it up with a national strike on May 11 and 12, 1981. That
strike forced government to agree to a new wage of N125. That was the first
nationally negotiated Minimum Wage. Some opposition state governments
especially of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) in the West and the Peoples
Redemption Party (PRP) in Kano
State had opposed the
alleged imposition of a minimum wage on the entire country, but the
effectiveness of the strike, gave them no choice.
However, many of the
governors including of the ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN) fought back by
retrenching workers and refusing to pay salaries. To counter this, the NLC
initiated a national campaign called Fight Against Retrenchment and Non-Payment
of Wages (FAR & NOW) The campaign met with little success, and with the
1983 general elections at hand, the NLC decided that there would be no
elections in the country unless wages were paid. Under pressure, politicians
across all parties got together and sourced the funds to clear the salary
arrears.
The N125 Wage subsisted
until the 1989/90 negotiations between the Babangida regime and labour,
increased it to N250. After that, there were only wage adjustments and awards
until the Abubakar regime which was under serious pressure to hand-over power
to a civilian administration, agreed to introduce a quantum leap to a N3,0000
National Minimum Wage.
In May, 1999, civil rule
was restored. The new President Olusegun Aremu Obasanjo promised a New Minimum
Wage. Negotiations quickly began and on May 1, 2000, a new wage of N5,500
came into effective. Along with this was an agreement that in order to move
towards a Living Wage, as opposed to a Minimum Wage, the new wage will be
increased by 25 percent in May 2001 and 15 percent in May, 2002. However,
government did not implement these increases. Finally, in 2004, what should
have been a total 40 percent increase was reduced to 12.5 percent, and
haphazardly implemented.
New wages were not negotiated as scheduled in 2005.
New wages were not negotiated as scheduled in 2005.
In 2008, the NLC made a
formal demand for a N52,200 new wage. Finally, on July 14, 2009, a Presidential
Committee headed by Justice Alfa Modibo Belgore was established. When there
were no positive results, the NLC and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) called a
general strike on November 10, 2010. The government raced to stop labour
disrupting the 2011 general elections. A bill was rushed through the National
Assembly. In March, a few weeks before the mid-April general elections, a new
National Minimum Wage of N18,000 came into existence.
The implementation took
months of strikes especially against the state governments whose governors,
ironically, had signed an agreement with the NLC and TUC promising to pay. As
the then Acting General Secretary of the NLC, I had demanded that since the
National Minimum Wage is a constitutional matter, and a national law: “Any
Governor that thinks he cannot implement the New National Minimum Wage, should
go home, resign and handover to his Deputy, and if the Deputy Governor thinks
he cannot obey the law, he should resign and handover to the Speaker of the
State Assembly and if the Speaker says he cannot implement it, he should resign
and hand over the reins of the State to the Deputy Speaker”
I foresee lot of battles
ahead, especially after the Ama-Pepple Committee handling the current wage
negotiations might have submitted its report. These battles would be avoidable
and unnecessary, but I do not see workers getting justice from the public and
private sector employers who may be reluctant to implement the new wages which
like the rains, are unstoppable.
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