May Day: Why minimum wage increase won’t worsen inflation -TUC president Osifo

The President of the Trade Union Congress has said that increasing the workers’ maximum will not increase inflation.

The President of Trade Union, Festus Osifo, clarified this in an interview with Channels Television on Wednesday.

He noted that increased revenue allocation to the state government since May last year is sufficient incentive to review an upward review for the worker’s minimum wage.

Osifo said organized labour has proposed an N615,000 minimum wage for workers.

“If you look today, from May 2023 to date, revenue from the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee to the state government has tripled.

“This means the state government has more money to build roads and schools to purchase other items. The most critical aspect of production is labour. It is for you to take part of the money and pay workers. That won’t increase inflation because the money will be spent anyhow; if you don’t give it to workers, it will be spent on other projects.

“Giving workers what is due them won’t necessarily increase inflation,” he stated.

His statement comes as Nigeria joins the rest of the world to mark the 2024 International Workers’ Day amid untamed economic hardship.

Meanwhile, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria’s inflation soared to 33.22 per cent in March.