MINIMUM WAGE: Workers and Labour Leaders Need to Fight for Full Implementation and Resist Anti-poor Policies
There is little to celebrate over the N70,000 new national minimum wage considering the rising inflation that reduces its value on a daily basis. Its dollar value is, at the time of writing, is under US$42, this is almost half the US$83 value of the outgoing N30,000 minimum when it was introduced in 2019. Nonetheless, we recognize that N70,000 minimum wage is an improvement over the previous N30,000 in the face of raging cost of living crises. Therefore, trade unions and workers must fight for its full implementation without retrenchment side by side with organizing resistance against anti-poor neo-liberal policies of the Bola Tinubu government.
By Davy Fidel
Labour leaders also won for their members the reduction of the five-year cycle for negotiating a new minimum wage to a three-year cycle. This is also an improvement but falls short of what is really needed. Labour leaders, as we have consistently argued, ought to put forward the demand for minimum wage to be adjusted in line with the rate of inflation given the cost-of-living crisis and rapid inflationary rate. For instance, if this had been the case Labour would have had basis to demand a new minimum wage following increment in the prices of petrol after N70,000 new minimum wage was signed into law, rather than mere cry of betrayal by the NLC leadership.
It is good that on November 11 the NLC issued ultimatum to all state governors to implement the N70,000 minimum wage or face strike actions from December 1, 2024. This year the N30,000 minimum set in 2019 had still not been implemented in 11 states, this cannot continue with the new minimum. But in the run-up to the deadline there was no sign of concrete mobilization of workers. We call on workers and trade union activists to ensure that there is no repeat of the situation with the last minimum wage in which some governors refused to implement and yet the NLC and TUC leaderships did little or nothing to challenge this violation. In other words, workers and trade union activists must mount pressure on the labour leaders to a serious struggle for the implementation of the minimum wage or quit their position. A situation in which some governors unilaterally announced the N70,000 minimum wage or even a higher figure without going through negotiation with labour leaders must be rejected. Also importantly, workers and trade union activists must insist that labour leaders must not sign an agreement on the minimum wage and consequential adjustment without having first tabled it at a congress of workers for a decision to accept or reject.
Moreover, from the past experience, the need for a struggle for the implementation of the minimum wage would go beyond December 1. Therefore, labour leaders and workers must be prepared for a protracted struggle. Besides, the struggle must be centrally coordinated by the national leadership. This means that workers must not be left to whims and caprices of state labour leadership, many of whom are bribed lapdogs of their state governors. And where state labour leaders organize a serious struggle, there must be solidarity actions initiated by the national leadership so that they are not isolated.
Also importantly, it appears that the demand for the implementation is directed only at the public sector. Private sector workers must also struggle and be supported to enjoy the new minimum wage. This also means that there must be a serious struggle against casualization which denies workers the right to minimum wage and subjects them to slave-like condition. Sadly, the scourge of casualization is also enabled by labour leaders in some private sector trade unions as they have vested interest in the outsourcing companies which recruit casual workers for companies under the coverage of their unions. Unfortunately, despite having promised on the assumption of office to fight casualization, NLC President Joe Ajaero has not lifted a finger apparently in order not to offend labour leaders whose support he would need to win a second term.
ANTI-POOR CAPITALIST POLICIES
It should be noted that the anti-poor neo-liberal capitalist policies, which the leadership of the NLC and TUC refuse to fight against, renders the N70,000 minimum wage paltry and continues to further erode its value. It is a lesson that must not be lost on workers and trade union activists. After President Tinubu pronounced “subsidy is gone” in May 2023 the Ajaero-led NLC leadership made it clear that the NLC would only defend the interests of organized workers and that Nigerians in general should not wait for the NLC to lead the resistance against anti-poor policies.
As the government intensified the attacks on living standards through the devaluation of the Naira, hike in electricity tariff, hikes in school fees etc., pressure from workers and the masses forced the trade union leaders to organise a two-day mass protest in February 2024 that was abruptly suspended on the second day and was never renewed even though government has continued to double down on its anti-people policies. All these anti-poor policies have imposed on Nigerian workers and the masses in general an excruciating mass suffering. For instance, the electricity tariff for Band A customers have gone up from N68 to N227; the price of petrol went up from N198 to about N1100; the Naira devaluation took the exchange rate from about N600 a dollar in May 2023 to now over N1,700. Hence, Ajaero is wrong to imply that its sole responsibility is towards the organized labour workers and by negotiating an improved minimum wage because the N70,000 minimum wage can only buy foodstuff that can hardly feed a family of 4 for a week.
We can reasonably conclude that the reason for lack of seriousness of the NLC and TUC leaders to organize a sustainable resistance against neo-liberal capitalist policies is that they are not armed with alternative pro-people policies. Instead of the trade union leaders going on the offensive by mobilising workers and the masses to resist these anti-poor policies, they embarked on mere shadowboxing. This emboldened the Tinubu-led government to go on the campaign of harassment and intimidation of Joe Ajaero.
Finally, the NLC and TUC leaders capitulated at their October 16 meeting with the government. This meeting happened after the government further increased petrol prices and Ajaero cried out that President Tinubu betrayed them. The betrayal was a verbal promise to labour leaders that it would not increase the price of petrol if Labour leaders accepted N70,000 minimum wage. The October 16, 2024 parley between Labour leaders and the government only endorsed all anti-poor policies upon implementation of tokenist intervention programmes like releasing 2000 CNG conversion kits, giving Labour 45 CNG buses to complete the 90 earlier promised to organized labour, persuading the state governments to implement the N70,000 minimum wage. These intervention programs are incapable of addressing the cost-of-living crisis. Arising from the meeting there was the participants’ understanding to henceforth ‘jaw-jaw’ instead of ‘war-war’, the strategic partnership solidified, the struggle to resist anti-people policies betrayed.
By and large, workers must also recognise the task before them. They need to begin to take independent actions in their workplaces, in addition to mounting pressure on labour leaders, to fight for decent pay, decent working conditions and resist anti-poor policies. Without this step, the concessions the labour leaders claimed they have won will remain a mirage. The minimum wage struggle must be linked with the struggle against high cost of living, and improved living conditions for the working people. The story of the minimum wage in Nigeria is one of the failures of capitalism to raise living standards or develop the country. The country’s first minimum wage in 1981 of N125 in 1981 then equaled US$205, today that amount equals N346,000, five times the new minimum. This is why there must be a struggle linked to building of a political alternative based on a socialist programme that will put the needs of the working people first before profits.