MINIMUM WAGE – N70,000 Not Enough

• Workers and Trade Unions Should Fight for Full Implementation AND Begin Mass Struggle for a Living Wage

 The Nigerian working class continues to suffer under the crushing weight of high cost of living and economic crisis. The current national minimum wage of N70,000 is, in reality, a huge joke. Yet the new minimum wage, which in less than a year has been eroded by inflation and rising cost of living, has not even been implemented by many states and private sector employers. For instance, according to Punch newspaper, at least 20 states have not begun the implementation for primary school teachers and local government employees (Punch, April 7).

By Moshood Osunfurewa

All this means that there is an urgent need for workers and trade union activists to mount pressure on the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) to lead a serious struggle for the implementation of the current minimum wage. As we said in a previous article, the struggle must be centrally coordinated by the national leadership even when taking place at state level. This means that workers must not be left to whims and caprices of the state labour leaderships, 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.

Besides, even in some of the states where the N70,000 minimum wage has been purportedly implemented workers’ take home has been seriously dented by heavy taxation imposed by the state governments, for instance in Kwara state. Unfortunately, instead of the Kwara state labour leadership leading a serious struggle against the anti-worker taxation they chose to grovel before the governor who granted workers three months of tax relief, which had ended in December 2024. Indeed, the labour leadership ought to have factored in the taxes when negotiating the consequential adjustment of the salary structure following the enactment of the new national minimum wage.

It should be noted that the situation in Kwara is not an isolated case. Many state labour leaders did a bad job at the expense of workers in the negotiation. This is why workers and trade union activists must fight for an arrangement which forbids labour leaders signing agreement on pays and condition with the government or private employer without having first tabled it for a democratic decision at a workers’ congress.

This experience of Kwara state and other states as well as the fact the anti-poor capitalist policies such as the fuel subsidy removal, devaluation of the naira and electricity tariff increase which labour leaders refused to resist with mass struggle have rendered the minimum wage, which from its start last July was grossly inadequate, further worthless, should not be lost on workers, trade union activists and genuine labour leaders.

Unfortunately, it does not appear that any lesson has been learned. For instance, there are tax reform bills currently before the National Assembly, which are essentially anti-worker and anti-poor. Yet, beyond mere lamentation on its adverse implications, the national labour leadership have not mobilized workers to resist the reform. Workers and trade union activists should begin agitation at workplaces and through organs of unions for the NLC and TUC to take the issue of the tax reform seriously and mobilise for a mass struggle to defeat it.

What the national labour leadership were able to achieve at the last minimum wage negotiation, albeit marginal, is the reduction of the minimum wage review cycle from 5 years to 3 years. Though, we had argued that the minimum wage should be constantly reviewed in line with the rate of inflation, this is relatively better than the old minimum wage law. This means that a new national minimum wage is due in 2027. But the process towards it must start immediately.

Therefore, workers and trade union activists should begin agitation to put pressure on the labour leaders to immediately begin mass mobilization for a new national minimum wage, in addition to enforcing the full implementation of the current one. The minimum wage should be made an important issue in the campaigns for 2027 general elections. Given the rising cost of living and inflationary rate, we are of the opinion that workers must not accept anything less than N250,000 as the new national minimum wage, and as against the current agreement, it should be automatically increased in line with inflation.

We call on workers not to accept the argument from the government it is not possible for the economy to support such a decent wage. Workers and trade unions should demand a reduction of jumbo salaries and allowances of political office holders and other top government functionaries including placing them on average wage of skilled civil servants. The wasteful and fraudulent contracts system through which roads and other projects are carried out at outrageous and inflated costs should be scrapped and replaced with democratically managed and controlled public works. This if linked with the nationalisation of the key sectors of the economy and their planning under democratic workers control and management can ensure that resources are generated to pay living wage and carry out other basic functions.

Obviously to achieve a living wage will require a serious mass struggle. We have to recognise that today Labour is not in the same position that it was twenty or more years ago. The experience of years of Labour issuing bold words which are accompanied by either no action, or token actions rapidly halted, have undermined Labour’s standing as a force that will can for working people and the poor. In this situation workers should call on the labour leaders who are not prepared for the struggle to voluntarily resign or be replaced. At the same time Labour needs to be revived from the grassroots upwards and, when necessary, initiatives need to be taken from below to start action and inspire others to join in.

This mass struggle, we have advocated, should also demand reversal of all anti-poor capitalist policies including but not restricted to reduction of fuel and electricity prices to an affordable rate. It also includes an end to casualization and contract staffing, building of new public refineries, reversal of privatization of the power sector and deregulation of oil and gas sector. However, such renationalized power sector, public refineries and oil and gas sector must be placed under democratic control of working people.

Also importantly, given the experience of the 2023 general election where all the major presidential candidates advocated broadly the same anti-poor neo-liberal policies which largely account for the current devastation of the living standards and none was committed to paying a living wage, the struggle for the demands highlighted should be linked with the need for building a democratically run, and non-monetised, mass working people party on a socialist programme. Experience, both in Nigeria and internationally has shown that on the basis of profit-first, iniquitous capitalist system, it is not possible to achieve a living wage for workers and the provision of other basic needs of life on a permanent basis. Hence, the need for a government which on the basis of democratic socialist planning make them achievable. Workers and trade unions have to fight for this.