Minimum Wage: Senate Is Self-Serving, Anti-People – Public Sector unions Category :- Society & People Author :- Salami Opeyemi Posted on August 8, 2013, 9:45 am The latest is by no fewer than eight public sector unions under the umbrella of the National Public Service Negotiation Council, which described the senators as anti-workers and self-serving. They warned that segmenting the labour market could be dangerous to Nigeria’s economy and should be averted. Among the unions are Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria, ASCSN, Amalgamated Union of Public Corporations of Civil Service Technical and Recreational Services Employees, AUCPTRE, Nigeria Civil Service Union, NCSU, Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria, MHWUN, Nigeria Union Nurses and Midwives, and Agriculture and Allied Workers of Union of Nigeria, AAWUN. The unions in a six-page statement, lamented that after many years of the struggle of the working people of Nigeria to ensure that this bench-mark of determining wages and prices, through established international standards, the Fourth Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, after a surreptitious public hearing few weeks ago, had, in what amounted to retrogression of Nigeria’s democratic process and history, voted down that hard-earned instrument against all conscience of Nigerian workers and electorates. According to them, “ We have noted all the characterization of primitive acquisition of wealth, unrestrained display of wealth before the impoverished masses of Nigeria and beyond our shores where their primordial exploits in utter neglect of the penury of the vast majority of Nigerians are laid for safe-keeping. In any civilized society, whether the United States of America or the United Kingdom and even other African countries, Upper Houses of Assembly enact legal national minimum wage for its citizens which form the basis for which employers whether private or public should not pay below. The enactment could be a zonal or universal wage system, yet the National Assembly determines the bench-mark of which no employer of labour should pay less. Is the Nigerian Senate saying that International Labour Conventions should also be determined by the state assemblies and for whom?” “In contrast to senators outside these shores, our senators earn salaries and allowances that are indeterminate, the aggregate of which would dwarf the earnings of the American President and most high class business chief executives. This generally puts them out of social and psychological sensitivity to the economic plight of the vast majority of Nigerians. That the Senate has remained more and more obsessive about the earnings of the poorest class of workers within the realm of income strata in the country, indeed, continues to call to question their oft-repeated claims of truly representing the peoples of this country. We note issues bordering on the interest and welfare of the public servants, the working class of Nigeria and the usual obstructive posture of the Senate. In a way, the Senate has become self-serving and in all times, anti-people. Not even in the military era, or in the dark age of our past colonial era have the Nigerian workers witnessed such flagrant abuse of their hard earned right to a better pay through the instrument of collective bargaining.” “Another area that is worth highlighting is that National Legal Minimum Wage is not restricted to public servants both at the Federal, State and Local Government alone but is of universal applicability to all workers, including those in the private sector. If the position of the Senate should prevail with the deregulation of National Legal Minimum Wage at Federal and State levels, who now fixes the minimum wage of companies? Will a staff of Coca-Cola Bottling Company in Abuja earn the minimum wage fixed by the Federal Government while the one at the Onitsha Plant earns the wage fixed by Anambra State Government? It is, however, sad that the Senate could not understand that the minimum wage is the irreducible minimum fixed by the sovereign authority of the Country i.e. the Federal Government, to protect the most vulnerable of the population in order to maintain a level of comfort that no employer is allowed to go below. “For the avoidance of doubt, the present collective bargaining machinery in the public sector of the country was first enacted by the colonial masters in what became popularly known as the Whitley Councils. Eventually, following many commissions, from the Morgan Commission 1963 – 1964 the Adebo Commission, 1970 – 1971, and the Udoji Commission – 1975 the present National Public Service Negotiating Council, as permanent negotiating machinery, was established. Comparable machinery at the private sector National Joint Industrial Council (NJIC) was equally established. The JNPSNC comprises both union and government representations and negotiates on workers’ welfare.”
Posted on: Sat, 10 Aug 2013 06:39:28 +0000
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