AKWA IBOM STATE MINIMUM WAGE SAGA: AT LAST GOVERNMENT ACCEPTS COLLECTIVE BARGAINING, SIGNS AGREEMENT WITH LABOUR

The controversy which greeted the unilateral action of the Akwa Ibom State Government's press release over the implementation of the Minimum Wage in Akwa Ibom State may finally have been laid to rest as Government today met with organized Labour to iron out grey areas of the negotiation and sign an agreement.
The Head of Civil Service of Akwa Ibom State, Elder Effiong Essien had, about midnight on Tuesday, January 21, issued a Press Release indicating that the Governor, His Excellency, Mr. Udom Emmanuel had approved the implementation of the new wage in the State, an action the Labour movement criticized as unilateral and a violation of the tenets of collective bargaining as enshrined in extant Labour laws.
The NLC had specifically condemned the action of Government, describing the abandonment of the negotiations by the Government and subsequent issue of the Press Release as unethical. The Labour Center insisted in a press statement it made on Wednesday, January 22, 2020 that the negotiations had not been concluded to facilitate the signing of agreement by both parties therefore the Government as a party in the negotiations could on unilaterally approve the implementation of the new wage.
It could be recalled had the last meeting of the Minimum Wage Committee held on 16 January, 2020 ended in a deadlock due to the inability of the parties to reach a resolution on certain thorny issues such as the salary table of workers in the Health sector, known as CONHESS, which the NLC insisted must be reviewed before an agreement for the new Minimum Wage can be signed.
The signing of the agreement comes after eight months after the setting up of the Committee on Implementation of the Minimum Wage by the Government of the State in May 2019.

Secretary, NLC