SSANU, NASU, NAAT Strike: No End In Sight As Striking Workers Go Tough On FG

Following what is on ground, there is apparently no end in sight as to when the striking workers of Nigerian institutions will be calling o...

Following what is on ground, there is apparently no end in sight as to when the striking workers of Nigerian institutions will be calling off their industrial action.

This is just as the Joint Action Committee (JAC) of the National Association of Academic Technologists, (NAAT); Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU) and Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) have declared that its members will not be cowed by the threat issued by the federal government to implement the ‘no work, no pay’ policy.

The unions also said it would resist the veiled plot to fractionalize the University and cause disaffection within the system.

Vanguard newspaper reports that the associations also stressed that the renewed strike action over the non-implementation of memorandum of terms of settlement as signed with the Federal government last September was indefinite despite the threat and called on President Muhammadu Buhari to investigate the plot and punished those trying to cause industrial disharmony.

Speaking with newsmen in Jos during the Unions rally at the Permanent site of the University of Jos, the SSANU Vice President, (North), Comrade Solomon Alfa, said the rally among other reasons was to protest the federal government’s skewed payment of University earned allowance which has been paid to the Academic Staff Union of University, ASUU.

He said, “It would be recalled that the Joint Action Committee, JAC of NAAT, NASU and SSANU embarked on a strike on 11th September, 2017 over the refusal of the federal government to implement the 2009 Agreement its signed with the Unions.

“A conciliatory meeting was convened by the Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige on behalf of the federal government where a memorandum of terms of settlement was signed. Two months after the MOU, the situation remains the same.

“Government has decided to orchestrate an evil plot to fractionalize the University, cause disharmony and disaffection within the system thereby destroying the emerging industrial peace and we implore President Muhammadu Buhari to investigate the skewed allocation and punish those responsible.”

The Unions further frowned at “the non-release of call circular in compliance of the National Industrial Court judgment on staff schools, shortfalls in salary payments, poor funding of education as against the UNESCO recommendation, inadequate infrastructure and abandoned projects, non-implementation of CONTISS 14 for Technologists and corruption in the Nigerian University system.”

They maintained, “There is no going back until our issues are addressed, we are not moved by ‘no work, no pay’, government should go back to the ILO Convention and take note of the rights of workers to ‘no pay, no work’.”