The President of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Festus Osifo, has criticised the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) for negotiating workers’ salaries and allowances without involving his organisation, insisting that both labour centres must participate in discussions affecting their members.
Osifo described the agreement on the N70,000 transport allowance recently approved by President Bola Tinubu as an aberration, arguing that the NLC could not independently negotiate on behalf of TUC members without consulting the union.
He made the position known on Monday during an appearance on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief, amid an ongoing disagreement between the two labour organisations over negotiations with the Federal Government.
The TUC president expressed disappointment with the position reportedly taken by his NLC counterpart, Joe Ajaero, and questioned the direction of the labour movement under its current leadership.
“Listening to Ajaero again today, I really pity the Labour movement and the quality of leaders that have been inflated on the NLC,” Osifo said.
He also referred to former labour leaders, including Adams Oshiomhole, Hassan Sumonu and Ayuba Wabba, while questioning whether the current leadership was maintaining the standards associated with their tenure.
Explaining his position, Osifo argued that International Labour Organisation (ILO) regulations did not prevent either of the two labour centres from negotiating for its members.
“There is nowhere in ILO regulations that says a trade centre cannot negotiate for its members. It is not there!” he said.
He explained that labour representation at the ILO involved the participation of workers, government and employers, adding that the membership lists of both labour centres were submitted together through the Federal Ministry of Labour.
According to him, the arrangement requires the NLC and TUC to work together whenever issues affecting their respective members are being negotiated.
Osifo acknowledged that the NLC had more affiliate unions, with about 60, compared with the TUC’s approximately 40. However, he maintained that the difference in membership strength did not give one organisation the authority to negotiate for the other without consultation.
The TUC president challenged Ajaero to produce any ILO regulation authorising one labour centre to negotiate on behalf of another without its participation.
“He should show me in the ILO Regulations where it says one party is going to negotiate without the other one being there or consulted. He should show me! He should show Nigerians!” he said.
Osifo also faulted the use of the Joint Public Sector Negotiating Council (JNC) in the discussions, arguing that the meeting where the N70,000 transport allowance was agreed upon did not constitute a properly convened council meeting.
He said the JNC had a constitutionally recognised structure and quorum requirements, insisting that the meeting did not meet the conditions for a formal council session.
“But that meeting that took place was not the Council meeting. The Minister is not a member of the Council. Ajaero is not a member of the Council. The Council even has a quorum and the number of persons that must be seated to form a quorum. But at the end of the day, that meeting was not a JNC meeting. The members of JNC were not there!” he stated.
On the implementation of the previous minimum wage increase, Osifo said the JNC should have been allowed to determine the appropriate consequential adjustments for public sector workers following the increase from N30,000 to N70,000.
He alleged that Ajaero instead sent a questionnaire to the council, asking it to apply a flat N40,000 increase across the board, representing the difference between the previous and new minimum wages.
Osifo argued that the approach failed to properly address the different salary structures and adjustments required across the public service, leaving federal workers with inadequate earnings.
He said he had personally confronted Ajaero over the matter, adding that he visited the NLC president’s office to express his disagreement with the decision.
The disagreement highlights the divisions between the two major labour centres over representation and the process for negotiating workers’ welfare with the Federal Government. Both organisations have affiliate unions across different sectors of the economy, making their cooperation important in discussions affecting Nigerian workers.
