National Telescope national telescope newspaper
Olatunde Oluwasola|
Former Ekiti State Governor, Kayode Fayemi, has called for the decentralization of minimum wage negotiations, urging state governments to determine their own minimum wage based on their unique circumstances.
Fayemi made this known in an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Friday, amidst the ongoing negotiation between the Federal Government and labor unions over a new minimum wage.
While labor unions are demanding N250,000, the Federal Government has offered N62,000. However, Fayemi believes that decentralizing minimum wage negotiations would allow states to negotiate with their labor unions, taking into account their individual peculiarities.
According to him, “Every governor has to deal with the issue of national minimum wage… We should decentralize minimum wage negotiations and allow states to have their own negotiations with their own labor unions, whilst the Federal Government conducts its own negotiations.”
Fayemi’s suggestion has sparked reactions from stakeholders, with the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) maintaining its demand for a new minimum wage of N250,000.
President Bola Tinubu has also stated that the federal government would pay what it can afford, emphasizing the need for realism in the negotiations.
