By Adedayo Akinwale and Udora Orizu
The organised labour yesterday failed to persuade the House of Representatives to discontinue the consideration of a bill seeking to decentralise minimum wage negotiation.
The two parties, after a meeting in Abuja, failed to reach a consensus on the way forward on the bill which last week made the organised labour to march on the National Assembly and state legislatures to pressure lawmakers to kill the bill.
The bill, sponsored by Hon. Garba Muhammad, seeks to amend Item 34 of the Exclusive Legislative List, which places the subject of prescribing the national minimum wage within the exclusive legislative competence of the National Assembly by virtue of Section 4(2) and (3) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).
Daily Post Nigeria
Published
Mixed reactions have continued to trail the bill seeking the removal of minimum wage from the exclusive to concurrent list.
DAILY POST recalls that a bill sponsored by a member of the House of Representatives, Garba Datti Mohammed, representing Sabon Gari Federal Constituency, Kaduna, marked HB 950, passed its 1st and 2nd reading in February, 2021.
Also, last week, labour unions protested across the 36 States of the country and the FCT, kicking against the bill, calling it “anti-workers bill”, and that it must be discarded.
But a former member of the House of Representatives from Plateau State and a chieftain of the main opposition, PDP, Hon. Bitrus Kaze, while reacting to the bill said, “It’s obvious that Datti’s bill is unpopular especially within the labour union circles, as Nigerians now suspect anything from the APC because they have failed woefully in their campaign promises and seem to be selective in areas they can further entrench
Guest Columnist
By Sam Amadi
The organized labor is in a tangle with legislators over a pending bill to remove labor relations, particularly, minimum wage from the Executive Legislative List of the Constitution and put it on the Concurrent List. This will make it illegitimate for the federal government to impose a national minimum wage on states that are incapable or willingto pay same. This proposed legislation rides on concerns about federalism and the need for component states of the federation to be freed from constitutional centralization. Expectedly, organized labor is not taken in by argument of decentralization and federalism. It stormed the National Assembly Complex some days ago and demanded the end to the bill that has passed second reading. Labor leaders rightly reads the possibility of successful passage of the bill that could easily rollback the strategic gains they have made in collective bargaining with a government that has serially betrayed labor.
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Leke Baiyewu
Leke Baiyewu
Published 16 March 2021
The leadership of the House of Representatives and the organised labour are now in a meeting over a bill in the House of Representatives seeking an amendment to the 1999 Constitution by removing matters relating to wages from the Exclusive Legislative List to the Concurrent Legislative List.
If passed and signed into law, it will decentralise the current national minimum wage solely determined by the Federal Government and allow state and local governments to determine the wage to pay their workers.
At the meeting are the Speaker of the House, Femi Gbajabiamila; Majority Leader, Alhassan Ado-Doguwa; Deputy Majority Leader, Peter Akpatason; sponsor of the bill, Garba Datti Muhammad; and representatives of relevant committees of the House.