The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) issued a statement over the weekend to deny that it negotiated the N40,000 “consequential adjustment” granted to federal workers after the implementation of the 2024 national minimum wage. Acting General Secretary Benson Upah said the adjustment was the responsibility of public‑sector unions, not the NLC, and that claims to the contrary were “deliberate distortion” of Nigeria’s collective‑bargaining framework.
According to the NLC, its role in the minimum‑wage process is limited to the tripartite negotiations that set the national floor wage, involving labour, government and employers. Any “consequential adjustments” – additional payments to bring workers’ salaries in line with the new minimum – are handled separately by the unions that represent workers in each sector.
In the public sector, the Joint Public Service Negotiating Council (JPSNC) – a body that includes government representatives and roughly eight trade unions – negotiated the implementation of the new minimum wage and the N40,000 adjustment with the Federal Government. Similar councils at the state level dealt with state governments. In the private sector, industrial unions negotiated directly with employers’ associations; for example, the Association of Food, Beverage and Tobacco Employers negotiated with the National Union of Food, Beverages and Tobacco Employees on how the new wage applied to their industry.
“Any person who attributes the outcome of consequential adjustments to the NLC is either naïve, plainly ignorant, or involved in propagating outright mischief to mislead Nigerian workers and the masses,” the statement read. “The NLC has never sat down to negotiate consequential adjustment with either the government or the organised private‑sector employers. The JPSNC and the Joint Negotiating and Industrial Councils have always performed that function.”
The NLC said the clarification was needed after “deliberate misinformation” threatened to create division within the labour movement as negotiations for a new national minimum wage approach. It urged workers to hold the appropriate institutions accountable and reaffirmed its commitment to ensuring that the forthcoming wage talks produce an outcome that serves Nigerian workers and approximates a living wage.
<small>Source: The Sun Nigeria — read the original story there.</small>
