No one can deny the economic wisdom and, indeed, the moral justifications, for the establishment of a national minimum wage regime, more so, as employers of labour who are in business to make profit would naturally want to keep the operational costs of their businesses, including wage costs, down as low as possible in order to enhance on their profitability. Since labour is a major factor in the economy’s production process, some have argued that, its price ought therefore to be dictated more by the forces of demand and supply than by arbitrary official fiat.
The wages debate is also a socio-political one, involving humans in a welfare-minded constitutional system and that is why responsible governments usually feel duty-bound to intervene especially where those governments have also deliberately provided basic production-facilitating infrastructures for the industries which invariably constitutes some forms of subsidy for them as a deliberate developmental policy stance; it thus creates the requisite locus standi for the State to authoritatively intervene because whoever “pays the piper dictates the tune”.
In other words, while it is true that market forces ought to dictate the true selling price of any commodity, including wages, governments have however found it within their portfolio to intervene because by providing large-scale infrastructural support for the industries, they have also, in the process, made businesses to be more efficient and productive than they would ordinarily have been if they were to be engaged in their individual provision of electricity, water, roads, security and other consequential items without which the cost of doing business would be unnecessarily too high for their profitability and survival.
Employers are not likely to voluntarily subscribe to a wage structure that would generously guarantee for the workers, certain threshold of material wellbeing that is commensurate with their constitutional entitlement of happiness and the bridging of the economic gap. From the point of view of developmental constitutionalism, it could even be argued that the government cannot simply throw the fate of its working population to the vagaries of the labour market at the expense of national wellbeing and industrial harmony.
In Nigeria, the reality is regrettably quite the opposite as governments have not been able to adequately supply most of the basic infrastructures required for efficient and productive business activities and it has therefore also not been able to do much about wage improvement.
There is also the larger problem of an all-pervading unproductive work ethics. Unless we kid ourselves, the average government employee and those in semi-official sectors of the economy hardly do anything to justify their pay. Even when they really want to do their jobs diligently, the resources, positive environment and incentives are always not there. The workers, obviously taking a cue from their political overlords who see government as a cash cow to be milked to death, have also learnt never “to kill themselves” for government because as far as they are concerned, it is always the case of “Monkey de work, Baboon de chop”. Ultimately, nothing ever gets down properly and whenever it is “done” at all, it must be that someone has “settled” someone as no official service is ever rendered for free.
Demands for minimum wage has gradually, in terms of timing and tone, been overtly politicised with very little consideration for the stark economic imperatives that should guide the negotiating parties in articulating and advancing their positions. Especially on the part of organised labour, it has become a periodic opportunity for photo-ops, primitive haggling as well as generating the willingness of the governments, especially those facing elections, to materially propitiate them.
For example, proceeding to the negotiation table proclaiming a minimum monthly wage of N60,000 when it is a well-known fact that the country’s economy at the moment cannot support such an outlandish figure is just playing to the gallery but they will say it is their “negotiation tactic” to first bid outrageously high. Such approaches, apart from exhibiting infantile grandstanding also evinces lack of seriousness because wages are not fixed out of sheer fantasy.
Talking about minimum wage, we submitted a few years ago here that “basically, the topic of minimum wage for any society should be one that would sensibly be predicated on the realities of the economy, especially in the contexts of productivity, market forces and justice. Unfortunately, what often drive our minimum wage debates are unwarranted factors such as the inordinate scramble for the “National Cake” and other bane sentiments that have little or no positive bearing on productivity. We should rather be pushing the governments to create better enabling environments for business and investments that would then create more demands for Nigerian workers just as President Trump is presently doing for America.
My concern, however, is that the NLC has never been able to protect the workers, their canon folders, from the inevitable negative fall-outs of their wage demands, namely, the resulting massive laying-off of workers by employers whose paying capacity for the increased wages bill is limited and can only do more at the risk of liquidation. Consequently, every wage increase cycle in Nigeria has always been followed by brutal massive retrenchments, harsh embargoes on recruitments and forced redundancies and the Unions do not seem to care about these inevitable negative fall-outs as long as they are able to retain their own jobs through insidious blackmails.
Minimum Wage In The Context Of “True Federalism”
It is funny when you hear Nigerians loudly calling for “true federalism” in the political front but staunchly insist on unitary approaches in economic matters. What is the economic rationale for expecting the various governments in the federation to pay the same level of wages and other emoluments, knowing their yawning differences in capacities?
I am not aware that the Revenue Mobilisation Commission, has any policy on wage differential that is consistent with true federalism or economic realities. Instead, it is simply serving as an agency for the official legitimisation of the National Cake sharing/looting syndrome. Starting from the top, why should federal officials and employees be paid lavishly as if they are operating in a First World economy? Why should a governor in Zamfara State expect to be rewarded and pampered like that of Lagos State when their respective economies are not equal? The Bible says “the labourer deserves his wage” but curiously, the Nigerian expects to be paid even without labouring simply because a wage has been officially “fixed” for him. That is actually rent collection instead of wages.
Rather than placing our economic hope solely on a valueless minimum wage that would, at the end of the day, actually compound our woes by promoting slavish attitude, we should instead be developing the right entrepreneurial mentality by looking at ways to boost our individual and collective productivity in order to enhance our overall economic worth. Our current work ethics is a sad manifestation of the impoverishing “Siesta Syndrome” in which hard work is somehow loathed. Something is fundamentally wrong with Nigeria and it is the general lack of dignity of labour, an indolent disposition acquired during the bygone “oil-boom” era that has now made 419, corruption, electoral frauds and kidnapping preferred national industries.
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