A member of Organised Labour negotiating with the federal government says President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the National Assembly will determine the next move the labour will make.

This comes after the deadlock at the negotiations on Friday, June 7 as the tripartite committee proposed a N62,000 minimum wage to Organised Labour.

Recall that after two days of waiting at Friday’s meeting, the Federal Government negotiating team raised its offer by N2,000, bringing its total minimum wage offer to N62,000, while organised labour reduced its demand to N250,000 from N494,000.

According to reports, the Organised Private Sector, OPS, is backing the government on the N62,000 offer.

He said: “At this point, we are looking up to the President and the National Assembly to right the wrong done by the government negotiators and their OPS counterpart. It was a high-level conspiracy among the federal government negotiators, the state governors and the OPS.

“Members of OPS hid under the bogus name of small and medium enterprises, SMEs, to claim they cannot pay reasonable wages.

“The OPS had willing tools in state governors who, from the onset, did not attend most of the meetings and never wanted to improve the wages of their employees, but were clandestinely meeting with OPS to scuttle any chance of a reasonable wage.

“For the Federal Government side, members of the team, besides ensuring that Mr President did not know the true situation of things, members did everything, including threats, to ensure we did not move forward.

“One senior government official singled out the NLC president for threats, blaming him for what he termed organized labour’s tough stance. Even when the TUC president wanted to defend the NLC’s president, he was not allowed to speak.

“Well, we have done our best. Since it was Mr President who set up the committee in the first place, we have returned the responsibility of doing the right thing to him. Don’t forget Mr President has always promised Nigerian workers a living wage. He now has all the opportunities to fulfil his promise to Nigerian workers.

“However, in case Mr President fails to do the right thing, members of the National Assembly who are representatives of the people, should rightly take up the responsibility of making Nigerian workers earn a living wage.

“We believe if the executive arm pretends not to be aware of the sufferings and pains Nigerian workers and masses are going through, we expect our representatives in the National Assembly to appreciate our pains.

‘’The issue will come to them (National Assembly members) as an executive bill. From there, they should take it up and make the nation’s workforce happier.

“What Mr President and the National Assembly do will determine our next line of action. After that, we can hold our organs’ meetings to decide our responses. For now, we have to wait. That is all I can say.

Meanwhile, some industry experts and financial analysts have said the economy is on a tough road to recovery and that the minimum wage agitation and return of fuel subsidy will further complicate the process and prospect of early recovery.