The Nigeria Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress are expected to suspend their planned strike after the Federal Government agreed to increase wages for all treasury-paid workers, including low-income workers.
The Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, made this announcement at the end of a four-hour marathon emergency meeting with the leaders of Organised Labour on Sunday.
The meeting came hours after President Bola Tinubu in his Independence Day broadcast, announced the approval of a N25,000 provisional wage increase for certain category of federal workers for the next six months.
However, there was confusion on whether the wage increase would also apply to low-income workers. Gbajabiamila clarified that the wage increase will cut across all treasury-paid workers, regardless of their income level.
He expressed optimism that the labour unions would backtrack on their planned strike.
“Hopefully, we expect that Labour will call a meeting of their various branches and executive tomorrow to present the agreements that have been reached, and we pray and we believe and we hope that the strike will be called off on Tuesday,” he noted.
The compromise was reached to avert the proposed indefinite nationwide strike declared by organised labour.
