Non-teaching staff unions of Nigerian universities have directed her members to stay away from work once federal government announces a date for reopening of the campuses across the country over unresolved industrial disputes.
Speaking with journalists in Abuja, the workers under the aegis of the Joint Action Committee (JAC) of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), and Non Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU), said an industrial action was inevitable, as government has continued to renege on agreements, adding that one year after, workers in the nation’s universities were yet to be paid their arrears of the minimum wage increment unlike workers in other sectors.
The JAC chairman who is SSANU president, COMRADE SAMSON UGWOKE, said despite series of letters by the unions to the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) office since February 2020, their members were still confronted with several challenges, particularly with salary payment.
He added that in the last seven months, their members who have been witnessing unwarranted and inexplicable delays going into the second half of the next month before payments of salaries, were being suffocated by the system.
“As responsible unions, we have avoided these crises but the irresponsibility of government and its officials have led us to a point where it has become inevitable. If fight we must, then fight we will.
“If by the time schools are asked to reopen and the needful is not done, it means hope is lost and the earlier avoidable industrial conflict becomes inevitable. This is what we seek to avert, hence this public outcry and call.”
Though government is yet to reopen the university education due to covid-19 pandemic, the National Universities Commission (NUC) recently revealed that there were ongoing modalities by the commission and vice chancellors to determine safe resumption of universities as soon as possible.
