N35,000 Wage Award: Labour Gives State Governors 2-Weeks Deadline To Effect Payment

Organised Labour has issued a two-week deadline to governors to commence negotiations on the N35,000 wage award for workers in their states in line with the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Federal Government, the Nigeria Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress.

VerseNews reports that the state chapters of the NLC and TUC, which handed down the ultimatum on Tuesday, said they had written to the governors to fast-track the necessary protocols and implement the award meant to assuage the su

The unions pointed out that the deadline for payment of the wage award would expire in the next two weeks, and they asked the governors to begin the implementation process.

VerseNews understands that this came as President Bola Tinubu Tuesday inaugurated the N1tn cash transfer programme to 15 million households to cushion the economic shocks of the fuel subsidy.

Each household will receive N25,000 for three months. With 15 million households getting N25,000 each for three months, about N1.13tn will be spent on the programme.

At the event, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr Betta Edu, said about 61 million Nigerians would benefit from the cash transfer.

The national leadership of the NLC and TUC had on October 1 reached an agreement with the FG to pay N35,000 to all federal workers beginning from September, pending when a new national minimum wage is expected to have been signed into law.

The resolution provided that the wage award would be paid to the federal workers for six months while states were encouraged to extend the same benefit to their workers.

Recall that Labour had threatened to declare a nationwide strike on October 3 but the move was suspended with the caveat that the wage award, cash transfer, and some other resolutions must be implemented within 30 days effective from the day the MoU was signed.

The Kano State NLC Chairman, Kabiru Inuwa, revealed he had written to the state government to demand the immediate implementation of the N35,000 wage award in the state.

“We have written to the government requesting for the payment of the wage award to workers in the state and we are still waiting for the government to respond,” Inuwa said, noting that the deadline given by the NLC to the federal and state governments to implement the wage award and other welfare packages for the workers would soon expire.

He expressed the hope that the state government would pay the wage award before the expiration of the deadline.

“The ultimatum given to both state and federal governments will expire by the end of this month, so we hope the government will start the payment before the end of the deadline,” Inuwa said.

On his part, the Gombe State NLC Secretary, Ibrahim Fika, in an interview with The PUNCH, said the 30-day ultimatum, which is now remaining two weeks, applied to workers in state governments. He said, “The ultimatum says the state councils should negotiate with the state government. So it applies to us.’’