The Trade Union Congress (TUC)has tasked President Goodluck Jonathan to use the next four years of his new mandate to create jobs and generate wealth.Also, the TUC has warned the state governors who are still agitating over the payment of the N18,000 national minimum wage to avoid workers protests and strikes to force them to pay.In its May Day message delivered by the President-General, Comrade Peter Esele, at the Eagles Square in Abuja, the congress said the most critical challenge facing Nigeria today was wealth creation and employment generation, which the newly elected president must address.The challenge facing Nigeria in this decade is to generate more wealth to meet the needs of a growing population that is projected to almost double in 2050. Increasing the size of the cake would require annual GDP growth in double digits to achieve the countrys 2020 millennium goals. While this challenge is daunting, it is not impossible if the political will is there on the part of the entire leadership. But first, there must be adequate power supply, Comrade Esele said.The TUC President-General regretted that rather than generating jobs, Nigerians were losing their jobs daily.Only recently, Comrade Esele said over 60,000 construction workers were sacked due to non payment of over N60 billion debt owed construction companies by the Federal Government and its agencies.Also, he stated that the banking sector was presently laying off thousands of workers, adding that there was no sector that was not negatively impacted by this anti-growth exercise.He warned that development and indeed the vision 202020 would be hard to achieve if this trend continued.Comrade Esele however, regretted and condemned the continuous and flagrant abuse of the laws of Nigeria by building, construction and civil engineering, dredging and pipe-laying companies in the area of expatriate quota abuse.He demanded the formulation and implementation of local content policy in the construction industry, as it has been done in the oil and gas sector.On the new N18, 000 minimum wage, he expressed concern over the continuous politicisation of the issue which before it finally became law was unfortunately turned into a complexity and debacle with state governors threatening not to pay.He said: Even as I speak, they have given conditions that unless the Revenue sharing formula is reviewed upward, they will not comply with the law. We are even more worried that Nigerian workers are subjected to this rigour within the process of getting what has been mutually negotiated and reluctantly agreed by workers as a minimum wage.We call on employers in the private sector who still pay below the approved benchmark to comply with the new law. However, Nigerian workers commend Mr. President for signing the bill into law.We request that the usual channels be employed to urge the belligerent states to be compliant and pay the new minimum wage to avoid the consequences from the struggle to get them to listen to the peoples voice.We did accept this meager amount as part of our own further contribution to nation building and we would not be happy with any state that refuses to comply with the law immediately.
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