JUST IN: Furious labour withdraws from minimum wage talks over ‘ridiculous offers’

• The government and the organised private sector are offering as new minimum wage N48, 000 and N54, 000 respectively

Organised Labour has pulled out of the ongoing minimum wage negotiations after what appears to be unwillingness of the government and the private sector to meet its demands on minimum wage increase.

Labour withdraws from talks after the government and the organized private sector, OPS, made what sources said labour described as “ridiculous offers”

The government and the organised private sector are offering as new minimum wage N48, 000 and N54, 000 respectively.

According to sources in the meeting, while government did not provide any data to back up its proposal unlike Organised Labour, OPS on the other hand, said none of its members pays less than N78,000.

Recall that the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) had proposed N615,000 as the new minimum wage, saying that’s the amount a worker in Nigeria should earn in order to be able to keep up with the galloping inflation and weather the cost of living storm.

In its breakdown of the proposed minimum wage last week, food was put at N9,000 a day multiplied by 30 days (month) which equals N270,000.

Also, NLC pegged N110,000 for transportation per month; while housing/accommodation was N40,000 a month.