According to the conditions of the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Federal Government, the Nigeria Labour Congress, and the Trade Union Congress, organised labour has given governors a two-week deadline to start discussions on the N35,000 pay award for employees in their states.
The state chapters of the NLC and TUC, which handed down the ultimatum on Tuesday, said they had written to the governors to fast-track the necessary protocols and implement the award meant to assuage the subsidy removal pains.
The unions pointed out that the deadline for payment of the wage award would expire in the next two weeks, and they asked the governors to begin the implementation process.
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This came as President Bola Tinubu Tuesday inaugurated the N1tn cash transfer programme to 15 million households to cushion the economic shocks of the fuel subsidy.
Each household will receive N25,000 for three months. With 15 million households getting N25,000 each for three months, about N1.13tn will be spent on the programme.
The national leadership of the NLC and TUC had on October 1 reached an agreement with the FG to pay N35,000 to all federal workers beginning from September, pending when a new national minimum wage is expected to have been signed into law.
The resolution provided that the wage award would be paid to the federal workers for six months while states were encouraged to extend the same benefit to their workers.
Labour had threatened to declare a nationwide strike on October 3 but the move was suspended with the caveat that the wage award, cash transfer, and some other resolutions must be implemented within 30 days effective from the day the MoU was signed.
