Minimum Wage Distractions

In Think Africa, Lucky Idedia on the unintended consequences of Nigeria's new minimum wage:

To pay the new wage, some states like Lagos will increase taxes or devise new taxes to increase their internally generated revenue. The ripple will hit the informal sector—the biggest employment sector in Nigeria. A market woman in Lagos, struggling to meet her tax responsibility in addition to other inflated costs, has no choice but to increase the price of tomato, fish, or garri. The same goes for commercial bus operators, and landlords. The load eventually falls on consumers, and that includes labour.

Organized Labour should focus on meaningful solutions:

Living conditions cannot be improved simply by increasing wages. Using the national union, workers should fight the cankerworm that chews holes in the pockets where that wage – however small – ends up. Organized labour has a lot of leverage, and is selling it cheap on the minimum wage issue.But they could really exert effective pressure for far-reaching change. This is not to say that Nigerian workers do not need a living wage. But there would be bigger and better rewards to be had if labour campaigned on a much broader range of governance issue. That way, they can ensure the government implements policies capable of improving the economy and sustaining a genuine living wage.

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