Nigerian workers will go ahead with their plan to launch a nationwide pay strike on Wednesday, one of their union leaders said after a meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan.
Jonathan on Tuesday cut short his official visit to Lagos to hold a last ditch meeting in Abuja with the leaders of the nation’s two key labour unions — the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC).
At the end of the meeting, which lasted almost three hours, the leader of the NLC team to the talks said that the strike would still go ahead despite the president’s appeal and it could only be called off by a joint meeting of the unions’ executive councils.
“We have heard the message of Mr President. We are going to go back to our organ (executive council). The only thing we can say to you is that the strike is on until it is called off by the organ,” NLC acting president Promise Adewusi told reporters.
The national executives of the two bodies were expected to meet jointly Wednesday afternoon to decide whether or not to suspend the strike.
The NLC last week directed all workers in the country to go on a three-day warning pay strike from Wednesday to protest the non-payment of an agreed minimum wage increase for workers.
The TUC announced that it would join in the strike.
Presidential elections are expected to be held in March or April next year.
The NLC had initially demanded 52,000 naira (346 dollars) as minimum wage for a Nigerian worker but after negotiations with government, the union later accepted 18,000 naira, the statement said.
The current national minimum wage of 7,500 naira has not been reviewed in over a decade.
Public service doctors in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos have been on a pay strike since August.
Nov102010