A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Adamu Garba, has warned that the demands being set before the Federal Government by the labour unions would force companies in private sector to sack some of their workers.
According to him, the level of demands the Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC and Trade Union Congress, TUC are hanging on the Federal government is not sustainable.
The former presidential aspirant noted that the total number of federal, state, and local government workers are far below the number workers in the private sector.
“With us as private employers of labour, how do they want us to cope? How would the government be for us too?
“If you force us to increase the minimum wage of all our staff beyond what our income can handle, it means retrenchment across many private companies.”
He said the labour unions must negotiate with caution.
“We must not continue spending 70% of our budget on civil servants salaries, remove subsidies to earn more for development, increase the minimum wage yet again for the civil service and end up spending all the subsidy gains on salaries: a clear vicious circle.
“The truth of the matter is, we are at crossroads; a proverbial battle between body and soul: We either choose our bodily pleasure by eating everything today and damn the consequences from tomorrow, our we choose our soul by enduring the pains of now for the overall benefit of tomorrow.”
