Minimum wage: Exercise patience – Negotiation team tells labour

Nigerian civil servants have been advised to exercise patience over the delay of the implementation of the new minimum wage –

The message was sent by Joint National Public Service Negotiating Council (JNPSNC) on Tuesday, August 20 –

The JNPSNC said that it will not go on strike since negations with the federal government are still ongoing The Joint National Public Service Negotiating Council (JNPSNC) has advised Nigerian workers to continue to exercise patience as the federal government and labour continue to delay over a new minimum wage implementation.

Speaking in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Tuesday, August 20, the secretary of the JNPSNC, Bashir Lawal, said that the council had intensified efforts to ensure that workers received their entitlements.

According to Lawal, the increase in percentage of the entitlements being negotiated by the JNPSNC is to ensure that workers who have not benefited from minimum wage since 2011 get something reasonable from the new wage increase.

”We have not sabotaged the processes. The committee is still negotiating the relativity. The council wants to maintain relativity on salary adjustment of workers on the two sides of the grade levels,” the unionist stated.

He said that negotiation was going on and that the committee would meet on August 23, to reach an agreement on the percentages to be paid to workers on both sides. ”Since negotiation is still on, we will not go on strike. For any strike to achieve its desired result there must be sensitisation in every area. ”But if all the discussions and negotiation fail to yield fruitful result, we will do the needful,” Lawal, who is also the secretary general of the association of senior civil servants said.

He said that he did not know what effect the current travails of the head of the civil service of the federation, Winifred Oyo-Ita, who is the head of the committee would have on the August 23 meeting.

Lawal also pointed out that the tenure of the chairman of the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission, who is also a member of the committee had expired and that another person had not been appointment to replace him in the negotiations.