We Have Not Agreed With Federal Govt Over Subsidy Removal — Labour

Organised Labour said it has not reached an agreement with the Federal Government on its demands following the removal of subsidy on petroleum products. 

The Labour Centre said all its demands have been harmonised and presented to the government for deliberation. 

President of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) Festus Osifo said this when he appeared on Sunrise Daily on Channels Television.

He was joined on the show by the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) Joe Ajaero on Tuesday. 

Osifo said the items would be addressed at the June 19 meeting between the labour and government team.

The TUC President said: “We have not reached any agreement with the government. We have presented our demands to them and we expect that by our next meeting, we will harmonise, the government will tell us what they can do and we will also bring our own data to the table during the meeting.

 “When we meet we are going to define each of those items and a timeline will be put on them. After the meeting on June 19, the timelines of each item is going to be revealed. 

Some of the demands of labour included reversal to the old pump price of N195 per litre; the increase of minimum wage from N30, 000 to N200,000; tax holiday for employees in the private and public sector that earn less than N200 000; introduction of premium motor spirit allowance for those earning less than N200, 000; provision of mass transit for all categories of the populace and provision of subsidy for food items among others. 

The NLC served a strike notice, the day after President Bola Tinubu, in his inauguration address, declared that “fuel subsidy is gone.”

The presidential announcement led to a knee-jerk reaction from petrol marketers, who immediately shut down filling stations and hiked product prices.

But after a meeting with the government, the NLC and TUC shelved its planned strike.  

– The Nation