Recession: Aremu canvasses pay rise for workers
Read Time:1 Minute, 45 Second
Textile Workers Union has urged the Federal Government to constitute a tripartite committee on the review of a new national minimum wage for workers, saying workers needeed a wage increase that would lead to recovery.
Speaking with The Nation, the General Secretary of the union, Issa Aremu, said the prompt payment of salaries by states and local government councils was a way of stimulating the economy.
He added: “Nigeria needs a wage-led economic recovery. The recent CBN report on the economy and to a large extent the latest report of National Bureau of Statistics, showed that weak demand for goods was one of the factors responsible for low capacity utilisation of many private sector companies.
“So, to overcome the economic crisis, workers whose wages buy basic goods and services must not only be paid on time, but their wages must be increased. Nigeria cannot overcome recession with the existing miserable pay of workers and pensioners.”
He urged President Muhammadu Buhari to urgently put in place a tripartite committee that would review the grossly low minimum wage.
He said workers had long been in depression before the recession because of the crisis of compensation manifesting in salary arrears.
He added that the collapse of wages caused by massive naira devaluation and price inflation of close to 20 per cent needed to be redressed.
Aremu said the minimum wage of N125 in 1981 was equivalent to 240 dollars.
“Then we had stable strong exchange rate and lower inflation. In real terms, workers in 1981 earned more than the current N18,000 minimum wage.
“With naira devaluation, it has unacceptably fallen to less than 45 dollars in 2016, a quarter of its nominal value in 2016 and less than one per cent of its value in 1981 about 40 years ago, worsening income poverty.
“For Nigerian economy to recover, there must be massive public spending in reconstruction and significantly mass spending by working people through improved wages.
“You cannot fight corruption with poorly paid workforce; poorly paid worker is not only hungry but rightly angry and even vulnerable to corrupt practices,’’ Aremu said.
Happy
0 %
Sad
0 %
Excited
0 %
Sleepy
0 %
Angry
0 %
Surprise
0 %
0
0