The organised labour under the auspices of Joint National Public Service Negotiating Council (JNPSNC) has directed its state councils to start negotiations for consequential adjustment and implementation of the N30,000 new minimum wage.
The Federal Government agreed on consequential adjustments and percentage increase for workers in the Federal civil service with organised labour on October 18, the joint negotiating council in each state is expected to open negotiation with its state government.
Kayode Fayemi, governor of Ekiti State and chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum had said the agreement between the Federal Government and labour was not binding on them, as states would only pay based on the financial capacity of each of the 36 states.
However, chairman of the joint negotiating council, Simon Anchaver said in Abuja on Tuesday that the union has given state governors till December 31 to implement the new minimum wage.
According to Anchaver, the union had adopted the deregulated collective bargaining style to ensure that state governments also negotiate what they can afford, so long as it was not lower than the N30, 000 benchmark. He said: “Any governor that said he’ll not pay stands to be impeached.”
Also, the secretary general of the JNPSNC, Alade Lawal, noted that the union had agreed with its state councils to start sending our letters to state governments, saying negotiations ought to start upon receipt of such letter.
“Negotiation with state governments starts anytime from today, we have agreed that the joint national negotiating council should send letters to state governments which will be sent tomorrow, the draft for the letter is ready.
“We will first send it to our members’ email addresses in the states and then we will send the hard copy to the state governments, Negotiation starts immediately after the receipt of the letter.
“We are expecting a circular from the National Income, Salaries and Wages Commission but we are being proactive. We have decided to develop a table on consolidated public salary structure and the consolidated health sector salary arrangement. This is like a replica of the table that we are expecting from the NISWC based on the agreement that we signed with the Federal Government,” he said.
JOSHUA BASSEY
