The National Assembly on Wednesday assured members of the Organised Labour that anti-people bills would not see the light of day.
The assurance followed protests by members of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) who thronged the National Assembly Complex to register their rejection of a bill aimed at removing the minimum wage negotiation from the exclusive to the concurrent list.
Femi Gbajabiamila, Speaker of the House of Representatives, indicated to the protesters that the House had agreed with their demand to kill the Bill.
The Bill, which has passed second reading in the House, intends to allow state governors to fix minimum wage for workers in their various states.
Garba Mohammed Datti (APC, Kaduna), sponsor of the Bill, had in a lead debate said the proposed legislation “would allow individual states negotiate remuneration with their staff according to their workforce and resources”.
He further argued that all states were not equal in terms of economic viability and therefore the states should be allowed to pay according to their Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
But labour kicked against the Bill, which it considered harmful to Nigerian working class and consequently staged a protest against the ‘obnoxious’ law at the National Assembly.
Presenting labour grievances via a letter to the National Assembly Leadership, Ayuba Wabba, president, Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), said the thought of the Bill was evil and malicious against the Nigerian worker.
Wabba emphasised that it took NLC several years with the instrumentality of the House of Representatives to get the minimum wage passed at N30,000, so it would be unfair to remove the Minimum Wage Bill from the exclusive list.
“We are here again on behalf of Nigeria workers, on behalf of Nigeria pensioners. We are going to resist the anti-progress, anti-Minimum Wage Bill, anti-peoples Bill sponsored by Honourable Mohammed Datti. It is a dirty Bill and we will resist it to the last level,” Wabba said.
“We have to make it clear and unambiguous that the Bill that seeks to remove the minimum wage from the exclusive list to the concurrent list is not accepted. Let me say that the issue of national minimum wage is a standard set by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). It is the first agency of the United Nations born in 1919 after the First World War. So we have the powers of the United Nations (UN),” he said.
Responding, Gbajabiamila, represented by Majority Leader Alhassan Ado-Doguwa, reiterated the commitment of the House leadership to do justice to the labour union petition, assuring that the Bill would be killed.
Ado-Doguwa said on behalf of the Speaker and the House, “we have accepted to kill the Bill as written and signed by the president of the organised labour and we are going to give it the right treatment”.
In a similar vein, Sabi Abdullahi, deputy chief whip of the Senate, assured members of the Organised Labour that anti-people bills would not see the light of day.
