FG’s Tripartite Committee on Minimum Wage to Hold Next Meeting Monday

•Payment of two months wage award arrears begins

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

As part of efforts to maintain dialogue on a new minimum wage with the organised labour, the federal government has fixed another meeting of the tripartite committee for Monday.

A reliable source from one of the labour unions told THISDAY that government had already sent a letter to the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) as well as other tripartite committee members for the meeting on Monday.

According to him, in the invitation signed by the Director of Salaries, Income and Wages Commission and Secretary to the

Committee, Mr. Ekpo U. I. Nta, the government said the second sitting of the committee would be held at 9am in the Banquet hall of Presidential Villa in Abuja.

At the first exploratory meeting of the committee at the conference room of the Ministry of the Labour and Employment, the federal government tried to assuage the feelings of the unions by promising to commence payment of suspended N35,000 wage award this week.

Apart from payment of the wage award, the meeting had agreed on an immediate joint inspection visit to the Port Harcourt Refinery for labour to confirm the reported progress made in getting the refinery back to operation.

At the meeting with the labour leaders, Minister of state for Labour and Employment Hon. Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, had noted that while the reaction of the labour organisations was not unwarranted in the face of government’s non-completion of the agreement, bearing in mind that some items in the agreement could only be achieved in stages, she hoped that the discussion would lead to the rescinding of the ultimatum by labour.

THISDAY gathered from sources at the ministry that payment of two months arrears of the wage award to those who missed out on the first tranche has started this week as pledged by government.

The source said the federal government was also making frantic efforts to ensure that all federal workers receive the January edition of the wage award latest by next week to forestall the planned workers’ strike.

The second round of the minimum wage negotiation meeting, is coming just as organised labour had insisted that they would not pull back from the threat to embark on a nationwide strike by February 23 if government fail to implement agreement it recently reached workers on palliatives to cushion the effect of economic hardship brought about by the removal fuel subsidy.

NLC President, Joe Ajaero, had told journalists on the sidelines of the second National Labour Adjudication and Arbitration Forum organised by the Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA) held in Abuja on Tuesday, that workers have endured enough of time wasting by government and will not accept any plea for withdrawal of the deadline.

According to Ajaero, if took the president less than 24 hours to implement removal of fuel subsidy, there is no reason government should not be ready to address its fall out, eight months after.