The Federal Government should begin making plans to pay salary arrears for the four months that the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU) took strike action, according to NASU.
The government should start evaluating the tough measures it took when the tertiary institutions were under lock and key, according to NASU, because all parties inside the University system have ceased their industrial strikes.
Prince Peters Adeyemi, the general secretary of NASU, made these comments on Wednesday while answering questions from reporters outside of the union’s National Executive Council (NEC) meeting in Abuja.
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According to him, the Federal Government should take advantage of the moratorium it has been granted, which expires in November 2022, to sit down and start addressing the unions’ current requests, one of which is the payment of salary arrears.
Adeyemi emphasized that the government would not, under any circumstances, brush the matter under the rug, particularly after making a comparable gesture to the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) when they terminated their two-month strike.
Asked if the Federal Government is still disposed to offsetting the salary arrears, going by its initial stance of ‘no work, no pay’, Adeyemi said, “That is the next issue, you see they say that if there is a fire in the house, you, first of all, have to make sure that you are safe to put out the fire, if you get consumed in the fire, you can’t save anybody.
“Now the process of talking about unpaid salaries will start, and nobody will say the schools are closed, this is the ideal time to begin to appeal to those who have taken those hard stances and we believe that those hard stances were as a result of the fact that the schools were under lock and key.
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“I have confidence as a union person that those salaries will be paid because it has been paid to the guys in the health sector, two months, this Minister of Labour and Employment facilitated the payment and he is still there, I am confident he will facilitate this payment”.
While supporting Adeyemi’s assertion, Dr. Hassan Makolo, National President of NASU, asserted that, in contrast to popular misconception, members of trade unions don’t simply go on strike to appeal to the public.
He claims that because it is done at tremendous expense to their members and the unions, the decision to call a strike is not one that Unionists make lightly.
He said, “Those who think it is easy to go on a strike should think of staying for four, five or more months without a salary or an income and think of what that does to the household of a breadwinner who is taking part in a strike without a salary, in terms of feeding, medicals, transportation, children school fees, aged parents and other relations to cater for as well as the landlord.
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“Moreover, most of the children in Public Universities and other tertiary institutions are our children, whereas the children of our employers and other Government functionaries who are expected to resolve the grievances of Unions in the public sector are either studying in Universities abroad or are in Private Universities here at home.
“On the part of the Union, the management of the affairs of the Union continues, including the management of the strike without ‘ check-off dues.
“The actions and inactions of public officials foisted a needless strike on members of NASU in the Universities and Inter-University Centres. The strike would not have started in the first place if they did what was expected of them”.
He continued by saying that institutionalizing collective bargaining in the educational and related institutions sectors is the only way to successfully reduce the frequency of strikes.
This is one of the demands they made of the Federal Government, according to Dr. Hassan, which was rejected by team members of the Federal Government Renegotiating Team.
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He clarified that government teams ought to consistently attend negotiations in good faith, including by carrying out contracts it freely entered with NASU.
His words, “Over two months after the Agreement signed by the Federal Government with the JointAction Committee (JAC) of NASU and SSANU, which resulted in the suspension of the four months old strike, we have observed that the processes expected to be put in place for the actualisation of the content of the Agreement are yet to be put in place.
“We, therefore, use the opportunity of the ongoing NEC meeting to call on the Honourable Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu to ensure that the processes for the implementation of the Agreement commence immediately before the members of NASU will start another round of agitation.
“We hope that some other industrial relations issues within the sector which the Government is aware of will be amicably resolved within a minimum time frame”.
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