Workers of Olusegun Agagu University of Science and Technology, Okitipupa, Ondo State, yesterday disrupted convocation with a protest demanding payment of N35,000 wage award being paid to civil servants since last November.
The protesters under the auspices of Joint Action Committee (JAC) of Tertiary Institutions had been on an indefinite strike since last week over the issue.
They carried placards with inscriptions such as: ‘All we are saying, pay us wage award’, We deserve N35,000 wage award, pay us’, ‘ Wage award is our right don’t deny us’, ‘ We patronise the same market, pay us N35,000 wage award’, among others.
Chairman of JAC, Dayo Temola, said the state government ignored their demand for the payment of the wage award and some other allowances.
He said: “Our joint demand is that they should pay us our N35, 000 wage award that had been paid to all categories of workers in the state. We are also demanding implementation of 2019 minimum wage. We are in 2024, yet we have not received 2019 minimum wage. It is shameful, we patronise the same market with other workers who have been receiving the minimum wage. Everybody knows what is currently going on in the country, even our current salaries can’t take us to the office again for a month.
“We also demand that the monthly subvention of the school be increased by 100 per cent. The government promised us N91million on paper and has been giving us N63milliion. It is far low to the wage bills of the university. As we speak, the university owes billions of naira from cooperatives and some other allowances. This is our agitation.”
Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa, who was at the institution for the convocation, appealed to the workers and scheduled a meeting with the union leaders for today.
Credit: Thenation