EditorialOrganized Labour and the National Assembly are on a collision course, over a bill on the fixing and negotiation of the national minimum wage. That bill, which just passed through its second reading, pushes for the transfer of minimum wage from the Exclusive List, to the Concurrent List, of the Constitution.The bills sponsor, Garba Datti Mohammed (APC, Kano), said the bill was to empower federal and state governments to negotiate minimum wage with their respective workers, in line with our federalism. But Labour immediately flagged a red herring: locating a ploy to short-change workers, and banish a common minimum wage, for workers nation-wide.Both sides have their points, beyond the rousing emotions and grandstanding of the moment.For starters, a House of Representatives bill, pushing to liberalise minimum wage along federalist lines, is rather rich. It is clearly putting the cart before the horse. Before such a move on salaries can make sense, the parliament ought first to legislate, outof central control,critical wealth-making resources, buried and dormant in the states.That way, states are given greater control to plough own resources (subject to agreed taxes to the central government). So, they could be better placed to negotiate and fix minimum wage for their workers. This is approaching minimum wage from the resource and local productivity anglesand it makes immensely logical sense.It still would not banish the concept of minimum wage as a national benchmark.Rather, it would make it much more attainable than at present, where most states go to Abuja for a monthly dole, from the Federation Account. These states implement the national minimum wage in the breach.But Labour itself, fixated more on salaries, than on the productivity that births workers pay, has reacted to the House of Representatives move with raw emotions, instead of critical and fresher thinking. Labour ought to have told the parliament to first federalise resources, before federalising salaries.If they did that, and made adequate noise about it, the polity would have been abuzz with another round of healthy,re-federalisation debates. That would have fitted pat into the umpteenth push for restructuring, but this time without base regional pride and prejudices, and allied fears, that pump toxins into that otherwise logical debate.That would again have pushed, to the front burner, the manifest absurdity of a supposed federal state, sitting on the resources its component parts need to thrive. Like a dog in a manger (which cannot function yet scares off horses and cattle which can), that debate could have put additional pressures on champions of the present dysfunctional structure, and egg them towards productive reforms.But Labour instead jumped in, with its usual emotive arguments, that tend to demonise, and accuse contrary lobbies of evil motives, over the minimum wage question. While such name-calling could secure short-term blackmail, which could temporarily scuttle the legislation, such strategies cannot deliver a vibrant national minimum wage, and its faithful implementation by all.In truth, the House of Representatives is not unanimous on the merit of the bill. Not a few at the debate slam it as anti-workers. A dissenting deputy declared himself shocked at the level of support such anti-Labour bill was garnering.Another predicted the House, even if it passed the bill, would soon launch another round of processes to undo the law.Still, beyond parliamentary cut-and-thrusts, these sentiments do little on the core problem: fixing a reasonable national minimum wage and the guaranteed ability to pay.Indeed, ability to pay is crucial. Manyif not mostof the states are just too poor to pay. The new minimum wage is N30, 000. But some states still cant pay the N18, 500 it was, before the latest increase. Some other states just settled down to paying N18, 500, after years of industrial tension and negotiation, before it was raised to N30, 000. So, the inability to pay is real. There ought to be cogent ways to change that parlous situation, beyond calling names and cursing others.That is the bind this constitution-amending bill could help solve, if the right logical arguments are made. But alas! It is petering into the usual gripping but useless emotions.Fixing minimum wage makes sense only if the states can pay. ButLabour and parliament canand shouldpartner in legislations to free critical resources, to help the states fulfil this bounden duty to their workers.If well solved, the national minimum wage would be exactly what it isminimum wage, above which many, if not most, states should be able to pay, not stall over a long period, as it is now the case.After all, in the First Republic, the Western Region was paying higher than co-regions; and even higher than the central bureaucracy. But that was because it had greater control of its resources. Nothing says we cant return to that winning paradigm.
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