The Organized Labour has issued a two-week deadline to governors to commence negotiations on the N35,000 wage award for workers in their states.
This is in line with the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, signed by the Federal Government, the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and the Trade Union Congress, TUC, on Tuesday, October 17.
The ultimatum was handed down by the state chapters of the NLC and TUC on the same Tuesday, as they said they had written to the governors to fast-track the necessary protocols and implement the award meant to assuage the subsidy removal pains.
They pointed out that the deadline for payment of the wage award would expire in the next two weeks, asking the governors to begin the implementation process.
This came as President Bola Tinubu inaugurated the N1 trillion cash transfer programme to 15 million households to cushion the economic shocks of the fuel subsidy.
Each household is expected to receive N25,000 for three months. With 15 million households getting N25,000 each for three months, about N1.13 trillion will be spent on the programme.
Dr Betta Edu, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, said about 61 million Nigerians would benefit from the cash transfer.
The national leadership of the NLC and TUC had on October 1, 2023, reached an agreement with the FG to pay N35,000 to all federal workers beginning from September, pending when a new national minimum wage is expected to have been signed into law.
This resolution provided that the wage award would be paid to the federal workers for six months while states were encouraged to extend the same benefit to their workers.
