The leadership of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) and the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has resolved to relax the nationwide strike after they convened a joint extraordinary National Executive Council in Abuja.
“The NLC and TUC are going to relax the strike and see what happens in the next one week with negotiations with FG,” one of the sources noted.
“We’re just doing communique but it will be released after the meeting with the government team,” another senior official confirmed.
The meeting with the Nigerian government team will be held at 1.30 pm on Tuesday.
Truetells Nigeria further learnt that the labour leaders were called to come to the Presidential Villa in Abuja for the meeting while they were working on the communique.
It was also learnt that they tactically sent out journalists from their meeting.
Truetells Nigeria earlier reported on Tuesday that the leadership of the TUC and NLC convened a joint extraordinary National Executive Council over their ongoing struggle to push for the increment in national minimum wage in the country.
It was learned that the labour unions’ meeting was held on Tuesday morning, according to sources at the meeting.
The NLC earlier said there was no plan to call off the ongoing nationwide strike until Tuesday’s meeting of organs of the union where all resolutions of Monday’s meeting were expected to be reviewed.
This was revealed in a post on X on Tuesday despite having signed an agreement with the Nigerian government last night.
“Until we hear from our organs at our meeting scheduled for today, June 4, we are still on strike,” the post read.
Truetells Nigeria had earlier reported how the Nigerian government signed an agreement with the Organised Labour after the government promised that President Bola Tinubu was committed to a national minimum wage above N60,000.
The agreement was signed after six hours of meeting on Monday.
The Secretary to the Government of the Federation, George Akume, announced this after the meeting with the labour leaders in Abuja which started at 5 pm and ended a few minutes to 11 pm.
The agreement stated, “The President of Nigeria, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, is committed to establishing a National Minimum Wage higher than N60,000; and the Tripartite Committee will convene daily for the next week to finalise an agreeable National Minimum Wage.”
The organised labour also agreed to “immediately hold meetings of its organs to consider this new offer, and no worker would face victimisation as a consequence of participating in the industrial action.”
These resolutions were signed on behalf of the Federal Government by Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, and Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Hon. Nkeiruka Onyejeocha.
The organised labour comprising the NLC and TUC had declared an indefinite nationwide strike over the inability of the federal government to pay Nigerian workers a living wage.