NATIONAL: State govts may be allowed to determine minimum wage for workers — Reps

EACH state of the federation may soon be allowed to decide the minimum wage it can afford to pay its teeming workers following an amendment to the 1999 constitution being considered by the lower chamber.

The amendment is seeking to relieve the Federal Government of its exclusive power to negotiate, on behalf of the federating units, the minimum wage for workers across the three tiers of government.

It was gathered that the lawmakers in the green chambers are considering an amendment to the 1999 Constitution by removing matters relating to wages from the Exclusive Legislative List to the Concurrent Legislative List.

When a bill becomes law, respective states and local governments will determine different wages for their workers.

The legislation is titled, ‘A Bill for an Act to Alter the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) to, Among Others, Transfer the Subject Matter of Minimum Wage Prescription from the Exclusive Legislative List Set Out Under Part I of the Second Schedule to the Concurrent Legislative List Set Out Under Part II of the Second Schedule to the Constitution; and for Related Matters’.

The bill sponsored by Garba Datti Muhammad, which is at second reading, is seeking to make respective governments to determined wages in accordance to available resources.

Muhammad expressed hope that the Federal Government, the organised labour, and the governors would support the proposal. He stated that allowing the Federal Government to solely determine a uniform wage for all states, irrespective of their individual economic capacity, was unfair.

Muhammad said, “Let every state pay according to what it has. But labour always looks at it from the point of ‘you want to weaken the organised Labour so that the government will always have a say’. Every labour union in the states should negotiate with the respective state governments.”