The Federal Government is expected to pay salary arrears for the four months that the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions’ (NASU) strike action lasted, according to NASU.
This was stated by Mr. Peters Adeyemi, general secretary of NASU, during a news conference on Wednesday in Abuja during the union’s National Executive Council (NEC) meeting.
NEC, according to Adeyemi, anticipates that the federal government would arrange for the payment of the salary arrears.
The government should start evaluating the tough attitude it took while the tertiary institutions were under lock and key because all parties inside the University system have ceased their industrial actions, according to NASU.
“The federal government was granted a moratorium, which would expire in November 2022.
He stated, “This should serve as a genuine opportunity for the administration to sit down and start addressing the existing requests by the unions, one of which is the salary arrears.
Adeyemi added that the government will under no circumstances ignore the problem, especially after making a comparable gesture to the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) when they terminated their two-month strike.
He further stated, “As a union member, I am confident that those payments will be paid, as they have already been given to the guys in the health sector for a period of two months.”
He added, “I am convinced that the Minister of Labour and Employment would enable this payment. He also facilitated the previous payment and is still in place.
Earlier, Dr. Hassan Makolo, National President of NASU, stated that unionists do not make the choice to go on strike lightly.
Contrary to popular misconception, he noted, unions do not simply go on strike to appeal to the people.
He claims that this is so because doing so costs their members and the unions a lot of money.
“Those who believe that going on strike is simple should consider remaining for four, five, or more months without receiving a paycheck or other source of money.
“Consider what it means for the family of a breadwinner who is on strike without receiving a salary, in terms of food, medical care, transportation, children’s school costs, caring for aging parents and other relatives, as well as the landlord.
“In addition, the majority of the students in public universities and other tertiary institutions are our kids.
In contrast, he continued, “the children of our bosses and other government officials who are required to settle the complaints of unions at the public sector are either studying in universities abroad or are in private colleges here at home.
He added that the management of the union’s activities, including the management of the strike, has continued despite the absence of check-off dues.
He claimed that public authorities’ acts and inactions forced an unnecessary strike upon NASU members in universities and inter-university centers.
Therefore, he claimed that if they had followed instructions, the strike would not have begun in the first place.
Hassan added that institutionalizing collective bargaining in the educational and related institutions sectors is the only way to successfully reduce the frequency of strikes.
He continued by saying that the Federal Government Renegotiating Team members had rejected one of the demands they had made to the Federal Government.
He continued by saying that government teams should always go up to the bargaining table in good faith and follow through on any agreements they willingly entered into with NASU.
“The four-month-old strike was suspended more than two months after the Federal Government and the Joint Action Committee (JAC) of NASU and SSANU inked an agreement.
“We have noted that the procedures that were supposed to be in place for the actualization of the Agreement’s content have not yet been done so.
“Therefore, we take advantage of the current NEC gathering to call on Malam Adamu Adamu, the minister of education.
He said, “He is to make sure that the procedures for implementing the Agreement get started right away before the members of NASU start another round of agitation.”
He then stated that we hoped that additional labor disputes within the industry, of which the government is aware, would be settled peacefully in a short amount of time.
According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), SANNU and NASU suspended their industrial action on August 20.
The unions had gone on a statewide strike in March in protest of what they perceived as the government’s casual response to their demands. (NAN)
