Festus Osifo, President of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), has said that the President Bola Tinubu administration is nonchalant about the plight of Nigerians.
Osifo stated this during an interview on Channels TV’s Politics Today.
He said that the organised labour had rejected the N60,000 minimum wage offer from the federal government, saying the government was not serious.
Osifo said, “From what is going on, one can conclude that they are being nonchalant. The president has promised to give a living wage and today we are discussing a minimum wage of N60,000. I think we are far away from it. If you say the government is nonchalant we quite agree.
“During the last meeting we found that the government is not serious with these negotiations and they are not yet serious with these conversations.
“If you remember, May 1, we issued an ultimatum that if there is no minimum wage in place, we could no longer guarantee industrial action. Do you know that before May 1 they did not even invite us for a meeting until that ultimatum was issued?
“So for a government that is serious about bringing its people out of these difficulties, minimum wage should have been taken much more seriously. If you look at the purchasing power, they were strengthening the industries, but today industries have goods in their stores but people don’t have money to buy. Government must be serious in bringing about a new minimum wage.”