The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) have vowed to shut down the country for a month if the National Assembly proceeds with plans to deregulate the national minimum wage.

NLC President Joe Ajaero made this declaration at the 67th Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association Annual General Meeting in Lagos.

Ajaero expressed outrage over a proposed law that would remove the minimum wage from the Exclusive Legislative List, allowing state governors to determine wages.

He said this move would lead to “slave wages” and perpetuate poverty among citizens.

Ajaero said, “As we are here, a Joint Committee of the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the Judiciary are meeting. They have decided to remove section 34 from the Exclusive legislative list to the concurrent list so that the state governors can determine what to pay you and so that there will be no minimum wage again. You cannot decide what you should earn.

“The very moment the House of Representatives and the Senate come up with such a law that will not benefit Nigerian workers, they will be their drivers and gatemen, and there will be no movement for one month.

“We cannot accept any situation where the governors and the National Assembly members will foist a slave wage on workers and force poverty on the citizens. Organised Labour will not accept it.”

“We don’t have a situation where people determine their wages that amounts to some level of illegality. In the constitution, there is a provision for equal work for equal pay. If we go into job analysis and job evaluation, we may discover that a clerk here may be doing the same work as the clerk in Sokoto.

The labour leader stressed that the constitution guarantees equal pay for equal work, regardless of location.

Ajaero argued that decentralizing wages would violate the principle of equity and equality before the law. He cited the International Labour Organisation’s recognition of wages as a national law, not subject to sub-national variations.

“We have put our members on notice that if these people succeed in coming up with such unpatriotic and obnoxious law. This democracy they are playing with, we have enough in this country in terms of hardship.

“Some people, based on their privileged positions want to inflict more Injuries on the workers and citizens of this country and that will not be accepted,” he stressed.

The NLC has proposed alternative solutions to the minimum wage issue, which if addressed earlier, could have mitigated the current economic challenges. Ajaero urged governors to prioritize the prosperity of their states rather than lamenting their inability to pay workers.

He said, “Every worker in Nigeria across the country is seen as Nigerian workers and any attempt to discredit them in a federation will first be resisted by the NLC.

There is no governor that is not receiving the same thing nationwide, they are not receiving according to their revenue in their states, but they want that of the workers to be so.

“So, the issue of using revenue as a basis for the payment of minimum wage is a lame one. If any governor is making that argument, then he doesn’t know what governance is all about.”

“Governors can do better, and they should stop lamenting; because lamentation year in and year out that they can’t pay will not pay as far as there is a lot of money for them to control,” he added