Minimum Wage and Industrial Actions: Problems and Prospects

ABSTRACT

The federal government of Nigeria dominates in the aspect of employment. So far, they have not been able to meet the demands of the workers which have to do wage increments and conditions of work. These have posed a lot of problems to the country in respect to series of industrial actions witnessed in recent time. A nationwide industrial action is looming in Nigeria over the (18000) eighteen thousand naira re minimum wage which Nigerian governors, in one voice, have refused to pay the workers, under the pretext that the federal allocation is not enough. If the removal of fuel subsidy as being planned is implemented to fund the increased minimum wage, then things are better left as they are because the corresponding increase in prices of goods and services will more than offset the increased minimum wage leading to no improvement or even a worse standard of living for the masses.

INTODUCTION

Nigeria has recently witnessed a huge increase in the number of industrial actions. No day passes in Nigeria without strikes or threats of strikes in one form or another. What was once thought to be ‘British disease’ seems to have become a Nigerian disease. In fact, strikes have become so endemic in Nigeria that even our courts would be prepared to take judicial notice of them. This development however is not very healthy. In the first place, it destroys the desired growth and development in the economy and secondly, Nigeria’s desire to encourage foreign investments will be hindered as no serious investor will be willing to put down investments in a country bedeviled by bitter industrial disputes and strikes over wages and conditions of service. The implication of withdrawal of foreign investments may appear as another indication of nose-diving economy.

Conditions for workers in Nigeria are far from ideal. Civil servants and employees of private companies (foreign) have relatively good offices and facilities, healthcare, and wages, but that is not the case for most...