Date: 2018-10-31

A member of the Central Working Committee (CWC) and National Executive Council (NEC) of NLC, Comrade Issa Aremu has condemned the position of the Minister of Labour and Employment, Doctor Chris Ngige, for trying to twist the truth by misinforming the public that the meeting of October 4 and 5, 2018 was inconclusive as the members of the Tripartite Committee on National Minimum Wage did not agree on a figure. According to him , the meeting was conclusive on N30,000 minimum wage.

Comrade Aremu made this clarification on Tuesday in his solidarity message to the state NLC under the leadership of Comrade Yekini Agunbiade at a mobilization and sensitization rally held in Ilorin·

He added that the NEC condemned wholeheartedly the recent attack against the Organized Labour and workers' rights by the Minister as contained in a report submitted to the Federal Executive Council by the Minister of Labour and Employment and on which Government has issued a White Paper.

The NEC of NLC condemned totally the application of the principle of "no work, no pay" clause in the Trade Disputes Act;. stressing that the major challenge today is the Nigerian workers are working, many of them are underpaid while some are not paid at all.

Comrade Aremu explained further that there should be pay for work done, while workers on legitimate strikes recognized by law only demand for decent work.

The labour leader therefore called on President Muhammadu Buhari to ensure that strikes should not be criminalized, and also condemn any attempt by Ministry of Labour to arbitrarily fix the tenure for workers holding union executive positions in contravention of the provisions of ILO Convention 87; and, Prohibition or exclusion of non-card carrying members of trade unions from leading or being part of negotiation delegations of trade unions reminiscent of the Abacha military era which will be resisted.

Comrade Aremu who expressed his support for the state NLC in organizing the mobilization and sensitization rallies for all workers and again reiterated his condemnation over the actions of the Minister of Labour against the proposed obnoxious policies of government against Organized Labour.

According to him, NEC also supports the proposed joint organ meetings of the Central Working Committees (CWCs) of all the Labour Centres on November 2, 2018for final preparations for a full engagement with Government on the national minimum wage and an indefinite national strike and industrial actionsfrom November 6, 2018; except government accepts and commences the process of perfecting the payment of N30,000 as the negotiated and compromise new national minimum wage before that date stressing that the right to strike is both a human and trade union right and cannot be taken away by any government.

As a labour candidate for governorship election next year in Kwara state, he declared that the Labour Party is committed to the new minimum wage and indeed living wage for Kwara workers.