By Bimbola Oyesola , [email protected]
There may not be respite yet in the industrial crisis in the universities in Nigeria as members of the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU) are making fresh demands on the Federal Government to make arrangements for payment of salary arrears for the four months the union went on strike.
NASU opined that all parties within the university system have suspended their industrial actions, hence it behoves the government to start reviewing those hard stances it took while the tertiary institutions were under lock and key.
General secretary of NASU, Peters Adeyemi, in an interview with Daily Sun Workforce, said a moratorium given to the Federal Government, which elapses by November 2022, should serve as a veritable opportunity for government to begin to address the demands by the unions, one of which is the payment of salary arrears.
Adeyemi pointed out that under no circumstance would the government sweep the issue under the carpet, especially when the government obliged the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) similar gesture after they suspended their two months strikes.
On if the government would be willing to pay based on the invocation of ‘no work, no pay’, Adeyemi said: “That is the next issue, you see, it is said that if there is a fire in the house, you first of all, have to make sure that you put off the fire for safety, 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 stance and we believe that those hard stance was as a result of the fact that the schools were under lock and key.
“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.”
National President of NASU, Dr Hassan Makolo, corroborating Adeyemi’s position, said members of trade unions don’t just embark on strike to play to the gallery, contrary to the erroneous belief in the public domain.
He added: “Over two months after the Agreement signed by the Federal Government with the Joint Action 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.”
According to him, a decision to call a strike does not come easy for unionists, because it is done at a great cost to their members and the unions.
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.
“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 expressed that strikes could be mitigated if collective bargaining in the educational and allied institutions sectors are well taken care of.
The NASU president said this is one of the demands the union was proposing to the federal government, that the renegotiating team rejected.
He advised that government teams should always come to the collective bargaining table with fidelity, including implementing agreements it freely entered into with NASU.