The organised labour has called on the Federal Government to be careful not to repeat past mistakes in the implementation of the new minimum wage.
To that effect, it advised government to meet with the Joint National Public Service Negotiation Council in order to generate a fresh salary table so that all civil servants could benefit from the increase.
In a statement signed by the chairman and Secretary of the Trade Union Side of the JNPSNC, Abdrafiu Adeniji, and Alade Lawal, respectively, TUS noted that a major error was committed in 2011 when minimum wage was increased to N18,000.
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“The normal practice is that once a new minimum wage is fixed, a fresh salary table is generated so that employees in all salary grade levels will benefit from the new emoluments. This is the standard practice all over the world and Nigeria should not be an exception.
“The generation of a fresh salary table in line with the new minimum wage will prevent distortion and overlapping. After the 2011 National Minimum Wage was fixed, the consequential adjustment was not properly handled. The government decided to award N900 across board for all the other grade levels in the civil service, thereby distorting the salary chart. This led to a lot of crisis, a scenario that should not be allowed to repeat itself this time round.
“The government should not continue to generate avoidable crisis in the civil service and this is why we are now urging it to do the needful by urgently inviting the Joint National Public Service Negotiating Council with a view to commencing negotiation on a new salary table that will meet the aspirations of workers. When a new salary table is generated, it will help to maintain the current relativity among all grades in the civil service,” the statement said.
Most state governors have committed to pay the new minimum wage of N30, 000 as soon as the modalities were worked out.
