Maritime workers get N200,000 minimum wage, end 20-yr dispute

By Gloria Nwafor  and Adaku Onyenucheya

26 August 2024   |   4:25 americium

• Labour awaits minimum wage implementation 
• Tinubu yet to regenerate Lalong 8 months aft resignation arsenic minister 

The Federal Government has facilitated the signing of N200,000 minimum wage statement betwixt maritime labour employers, nether the Shipping, Shipping Agencies, Clearing, and Forwarding Employers Association (SACFEA), and the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN).

  
This was arsenic members of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) inactive awaited the implementation of the N70,000 minimum wage approved by the Federal Government.
  
Meanwhile, President Bola Tinubu has yet to name a substantive curate for the Ministry of Labour and Employment, 8 months aft the resignation of Simon Lalong, arsenic the bulk of his ministers clocked 1 twelvemonth successful bureau this August.
  
The agreement, which sets a caller minimum modular of conditions of work for workers successful the shipping industry, was reached aft much than 2 decades of quality and negotiations. 
  
The signing took spot implicit the play successful Lagos, with the Minister for Marine and Blue Economy, Adegboyega Oyetola, presiding implicit the event, which was organised by the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC).
  
Oyetola emphasised the value of treating the maritime workforce with dignity and providing them with the indispensable conditions to thrive, fixed the sector’s important relation successful occupation instauration and its publication to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). He urged each parties progressive to honour the statement and enactment towards creating a affirmative enactment environment.  
  
The curate besides encouraged labour unions to stay vigilant successful advocating workers’ rights and ensuring compliance with the caller standards, portion assuring that the authorities would proceed to supply oversight and enactment for ongoing improvements. 
  
The President of SACFEA, Mrs Boma Alabi, highlighted that the caller minimum wage for workers successful the shipping manufacture “is present the highest successful immoderate industry” crossed the nation. She noted that portion the nationalist minimum wage stood astatine N70,000, the shipping employers decided to hold to a minimum wage of N200,000, astir 3 times the nationalist standard.  
  
Alabi explained that though the workers initially requested N160,000, the employers chose to connection N200,000 successful designation of the contiguous economical concern successful the state and to guarantee the restitution of each parties involved. She expressed optimism that the caller statement would lend to the maturation of the nation’s bluish system done uniformity successful standards and enhanced productivity.
  
President-General of MWUN, Adewale Adeyanju, assured that the N200,000 minimum wage would beryllium reviewed each 2 years to guarantee it remains just and reflective of economical realities.
  
Adeyanju, who is besides the Deputy President of NLC, hailed the statement arsenic a “significant milestone” successful the union’s longstanding efforts to destruct unfair labour practices and amended moving conditions wrong the shipping subsector.  He stressed that the national would proceed to advocator the rights and interests of maritime workers, ensuring peaceful concern relations.
 
Earlier, the Executive Secretary of NSC, Pius Akutah, commended the curate for his committedness to the payment of workers and praised Adeyanju’s leadership, which helium credited for importantly contributing to the occurrence of the negotiations.  

WHILE Lalong had resigned from his presumption to alteration him to instrumentality his spot astatine the Senate to correspond Plateau South, the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, has been moving the affairs of ministry successful an acting capacity, wherever she participated afloat during the dialog workout and onward transition of the N70,000 nationalist minimum wage into law.
  
Many commended her cordial narration with the labour unions but argued that Tinubu had been unfair to her due to the fact that since it was a governmental enactment that persuaded Lalong to instrumentality the senatorial position, she should person been upgraded to a substantive Labour curate and past a Minister of State should beryllium appointed to enactment her.
  
The Deputy President of the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC), Dr Tommy Okon, said portion the ministry did good successful the minimum wage negotiation, workers inactive await the implementation of the caller wage.
  
Asked if the implementation of the caller minimum wage would commence this August, Okon said, “If it is implemented this August, we volition beryllium precise happy. It is not successful the purview of the unions. What the unions bash is to equine pressure, and I judge we are doing our champion successful that direction.”
  
A labour lawyer-activist, Femi Aborisade, however, scored the ministry beneath performance, saying that nether the existent dispensation, the wages of the idiosyncratic were not capable to instrumentality the workers location and that the idiosyncratic was not escaped to workout the close of expression, arsenic peaceful protests had been criminalised and turned into a violent act.