According to Socialist Labour, employers had repeatedly increased the prices of goods and services whenever production costs rose, while workers’ demands for wage increases were being portrayed as a threat to the economy.
Socialist Labour, Oyo State Chapter, has condemned the Organised Private Sector (OPS) over its opposition to the demand by the Federal Workers Forum for an increase in Nigeria’s minimum wage to N300,000.
The group, in a statement issued in Ibadan on Wednesday and signed by Comrade Ogundele Ayodele, said the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) and other employers’ groups were attempting to shift the burden of Nigeria’s economic crisis onto workers.
Socialist Labour said the OPS must distinguish between macroeconomic indicators and the “brutal microeconomic reality” confronting Nigerian workers, who it said were struggling with soaring food, transport, housing, healthcare and education costs.
“The central question is simple: where is the purchasing power of Nigerian workers?” the group asked.
