Activities on university campuses may be grounded from tomorrow.
Non-teaching staff are set to down tools.
The workers are seeking payment of their four-month salary arrears and to resume the payment of the N35,000 wage award announced in October last year by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Their umbrella body – the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) – resolved o the action during their 48th regular National Executive Council meeting in Benin, Edo State on June 27 and 28.
The Joint Action Committee (JAC) of the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU) and SSANU had on June 20, 2024, sent a letter to Education Minister, Prof Tahir Mamman, informing him that their members would begin a work boycott in two weeks if their demands were not met.
The ultimatum ends tomorrow.
In the letter by NASU General Secretary Peters Adeyemi and SSANU President Mohammed Ibrahim, the two unions accused the government of “neglect and insincerity.”
In a communiqué issued yesterday by its President, SSANU accused the government of partiality and dribbling its leadership on a 2009 agreement it signed with the university union.
Calling for the constitution of a new committee to further take action on the implementation of the pact, SSANU said it was dismayed that after all promises by Prof Mamman, Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Nkiruka Onyejeocha, and House of Representatives that the arrears would be paid, the government has continued to play games even after it suspended ‘’a one- week warning strike in March.”
The communiqué reads: “NEC in session once again expresses utmost dismay at the unprecedented level of government’s insensitivity and deliberate resolve to cause chaos in the university system by adopting the divide and rule policy to set unions on a collision course through preferential treatment of one union over others.
‘’Recall SSANU and other unions were compelled by the government to embark on strike in 2022 over the government’s refusal to honour a collective bargaining agreement willingly signed by all parties. At the end of the strike, the then Muhammadu Buhari Government further signed an elaborate agreement among which was the non-victimisation clause.
“However, the government made a selective payment of the withheld salaries. While we do not begrudge the payment made to our colleagues, we expected the same gesture to be extended to SSANU and NASU which legally complied with all procedures before embarking on the industrial action.
‘’Despite all promises and media hypes by the Ministers of Education and Labour, including the House of Representatives to pay these arrears, the government has continued to dribble SSANU, even after the mutual agreement to suspend the one-week warning strike in March.
“NEC in session deliberated on the matter and unanimously approved a long-drawn comprehensive industrial action after concurrence with the Joint Action Committee meeting of SSANU and NASU scheduled for Thursday, 4th July 2024, if the government fails to pay the four months salary arrears.”
The university unions called on the government to resume the payment of the N35,000 wage award and state governments that have yet to commence payment to start doing so.
They added: ‘’The gross inability of the wage award to heal the excruciating financial wounds is further compounded by its stoppage in federal universities with three months arrears already pending.
‘’Many states are yet to effect payment of the wage award to our members in their universities thereby increasing their economic woes.
“NEC, therefore, calls on the Federal Government to immediately resume the payment of the wage award alongside the accrued three months arrears without further delay. NEC also calls on state governments that are yet to commence payment of the wage award to commence it with the arrears accruing therefrom.”
On the new minimum wage, SSANU asked the government to comply with the demands of labour and hasten the process of negotiation, approval, and implementation.
The union threatened to join forces with other labour unions to shut down the system if negotiation on a new national wage was not concluded.
The union, however, applauded the reconstitution of the Governing Councils of federal universities but frowned ‘’at the non-appointment of educationist and experienced technocrats’’ in them as members.
