By: Felix Ikpotor
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has listed Rivers State among states yet to comply with the new minimum wage law passed by the Federal Government.
Although the state government claimins it has complied with the law in January but the organized labour said only 17 of 36 states have so far commenced the implementation of the N30,000 new minimum wage for civil servants.
The labour movement also said that negotiations on the payment of the new minimum wage are still on-going in 16 states.
According to detailed updates made available to journalists on Tuesday at its National Administrative Council (NAC) meeting in Abuja on the progress made on the implementation of the new minimum wage by the states, NLC said that only Taraba State is yet to begin negotiation with its workers.
It said that while agreement has been reached on the new minimum wage in Cross River, Enugu and Sokoto States, the parties have not signed it.
States that have commenced the implementation of the new minimum wage according to the NLC are Borno, Delta, Ebonyi, Edo, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Lagos, Ondo, Sokoto, Yobe and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
NLC also said that 20 states have not commenced the implementation of the new minimum wage.
The states include Benue, Cross River, Ekiti, Enugu, Gombe, Imo, Kogi, Kwara, Nasarawa, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Plateau, Rivers, Taraba and Zamfara.
PHSpectator recalls that the Rivers State government while paying January salaries of workers in the state added some amounts which it claim was the implementation of the new minimum wage agreement reached with NLC in the state.
But, the NLC chairperson, Beatrice Itubo came up later to debunk such claim, stressing that no agreement has been reached with workers before the government rushed to pay the January salaries.
She challenged the government to produce the agreement signed with labour and also the payment voucher used in effecting the increase.
