Minimum wage: NLC to hold nationwide protest Tuesday

NLC labour

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has said it will on Tuesday hold a nationwide protest to drive its demand for the upward review of the national minimum wage from N18,000 to N30,000.

NLC General Secretary, Peter Ozo-Eson, said on Monday that the union never planned to go on strike on Tuesday, saying its action was misrepresented in the media.

Mr Ozo-Eson added that some sections of the news media had largely misrepresented its action plan in reaction to the delay in transmitting the recommendations of the Tripartite Committee on a new national minimum wage to the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari.

“It should be recalled that the National Executive Council of the NLC met on December 17 last year and directed that we hold nationwide mobilisation of workers and our allies if, by December 31, 2018, the bill on the national minimum wage has yet to be sent to the National Assembly to be passed as an Act of Parliament,” Ozo-Eson said.

He added that the congress immediately announced then that on Tuesday, January 8, there would be a nationwide mass mobilisation and protests simultaneously across all states in Nigeria, adding that “this does not translate to a strike.”