Minimum wage:National strike looms Nov 10 – Daily Trust

A three-day nation-wide warning strike would be called out from November 10 to 12 to press home workers’ demand for the implementation of a new national minimum wage, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) declared in Abuja yesterday. A joint government-labour committee on national minimum wage submitted a report last July proposing N18, 000 as the new national minimum wage, but government is yet to implement it.

NLC President Comrade Abdulwaheed Omar spoke in Abuja after the NLC’s National Executive Council (NEC) meeting, where he said government was conniving with the private sector to scuttle the implementation of the new proposal. He said “the NEC-in-Session observed that there is a deliberate connivance between government and the private sector to scuttle the implementation of a new minimum wage…and resolved that as a result of this reluctance by government to implement the new minimum wage several months after the negotiations ended and recommendations made, the Nigeria Labour Congress will embark on a three-day warning strike.

“Towards this end, NEC-in-Session resolved to give government the 14-day statutory notice after which it will embark on the warning strike. NEC-in-Session resolved that the three-day warning strike would begin on Wednesday, November 10 to Friday, November 12, 2010.”

He said a National Minimum Wage Strike Committee is to be set up to drive the process for intensive mobilisation for a very successful strike and to collaborate with the Trades Union Congress in the struggle.