The national president of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), Joe Ajaero, has explained the reasons behind proposing N615,000 as the minimum wage to the federal government.

Ajaero, who paid a courtesy visit to The Nation headquarters in Lagos on Thursday, May 9, said the economic realities in country informed the decision to make the proposal to the government.

He said though there were misconceptions about the proposal, the NLC arrived at the figure to make lives better for the workers.

He stated: “There are misconceptions about the proposed N615, 000, but we don’t have choice and if we are asked to represent it today it will increase. The tarrif was not there when we made the proposal but things are hard now.

“We looked at food, medicals, education, and other utilities. We didn’t make provision for communication, offering and the likes. Those are some of the things we took into cognisance before we arrived at N615k.

“We think it is better for us to explain to Nigerians for them to understand us better. The removal of subsidy also affected everything. Probably, if the subsidy was not removed, we would have suggested N80k.”