…..insist bill is anti-masses, toxic
…..As Gbajabiamila caution workers against any form of strike
By Christiana Ekpa
The Nigeria’s organised labour yesterday insisted that the House of Representatives should trashed the bill seeking to remove the National Minimum Wage from the exclusive legislative list, to the concurrent list of the 1999 Constitution.
President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Ayuba Wabba, who disclosed this on Tuesday when he led a delegation of Labour leaders in response to Gbajabialmila’s invitation, said Labour considered “this anti-workers’ bill as an attempt by a few self-seeking and narrow-minded politicians to return Nigeria to the era of slave wages, servile work conditions and severe industrial crisis”.
He said “Our prayer goes to the leadership of the House of Representatives. We implore that this toxic and anti-masses bill should not enjoy any form of support from the honourable house of the Nigerian people -the House of Representatives. The bill should be killed immediately.
“Organized Labour will continue its current protest in all the states of the federation as a first line of action. Subsequently, if our elected political leaders remain adamant to the plea of Nigerian workers to retain the National Minimum Wage in the Exclusive Legislative List, we will have no other option but to withdraw our services. This will only be the beginning of popular resistance against this agenda of neocolonization and mass enslavement of the Nigerian people”,
Gbajabiamila has however cautioned against any form of strike, assuring that “the House will what is right”.
According to him, the national minimum wage was a global standard. “It was adopted by the International Labour Organization (ILO) as Minimum Wage Fixing Machinery through Convention 026 of 1928 and reinforced by Minimum Wage Fixing Convention 131 of 1970. It was also captured in Article III subsection (d) of the ILO Philadelphia Declaration”.
He noted that the cited conventions which demanded all the nations of the world to pursue policies in regard to wages, earnings, hours and other conditions of work calculated to ensure a just share of fruits of progress to all, and minimum living wage to all employed and in need of such protection”, and ratified by Nigeria, a reason he said accounted for its inclusion in the exclusive items of the constitution.
Speaker Gbajabiamila in response however lamented over the attitude of the citizens opting to cast aspersions on lawmakers, each time they disagree with any legislative instruments, noting that there are democratic ways of addressing such issues. “We may disagree to agree. On any issue that concern Nigerians, this house has never been found wanting”, he said, adding that no that any bill that rejected by the people will die naturally.
