By Joel Okwara
The Lagos State Chapter of Labour Party (LP) has appealed to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu to ensure a living wage for workers in the state.
The state Publicity Secretary of the party, Mrs Olubunmi Odesanya, made the plea in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday, May 29, in Lagos.
Odesanya, while assessing Sanwo-Olu as he marks the first anniversary in his second tenure, said the governor needed to step up his game to relieve residents of the current socio-economic challenges.
According to her, masses in the state, including workers, are struggling to survive and to meet their daily personal and family needs.
She urged the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to pity the workers in whatever it was proposing as the minimum wage.
Odesanya said the people, however, needed a living wage, which would take cognisance of the socio-economic indices for workers to be happy.
She said: “We are all watching in awe the minimum wage debacle. The current minimum wage of N30,000, is due for review this year 2024, as we can recall, from the agreed and written Labour Law.
“Ordinarily, the review ought not create so much apprehension or furore but for the difficulties in the country.”
The New Diplomat recalls that Governor Sanwo-Olu lately disclosed that his government was paying its workers N70,000 since January 2024, up from the subsisting N35,000 minimum wage.
However, the LP chieftain said there was an urgent need for the Federal Government and the state governments to give a living wage to the workers that “lay the golden egg.”
She said that the immediate removal of fuel subsidy by the federal government drove the prices of goods and services to a high level.
“In Nigeria today, there is no middle class anymore, you are either extremely poor or super rich. Inflation rate is high,” she said.
The LP spokesperson however, decried the current back-and-forth battle between the federal government and organised labour on the minimum wage, saying, the government “needs to propose a minimum wage that takes cognisance of the current economic realities,” she said.
Odesanya added that the federal government should block wastages in the system, stop corruption and cut down on the salaries of federal lawmakers.
NAN recalls that the organised labour on Tuesday, May 28, walked out of the Tripartite Committee meeting on Minimum Wage, after the federal government increased its offer to N60,000.
The government and the OPS (organised private sector) had initially proposed ₦48,000 and ₦54,000 and N60,000, which were also rejected by the organised labour, which had presented ₦615,000 as the new minimum wage, but dropped their demand to ₦497,000 and then to ₦494,000.
