SSANU, NASU Declare Warning Strike Over Withheld Salaries

The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities and the Non-Academic Staff Union on Monday declared a seven-day warning strike.

According to the unions, the declaration was made to demand the payment of four months of withheld salaries of their members.

The Federal Government withheld the salaries following the 2022 nationwide strike.

This development followed the resolution of the joint action committee of the two unions after a meeting held in Akure, the Ondo State capital, on Saturday and Sunday.

Recall that the Joint Action Committee of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities and the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions have threatened to disrupt industrial peace in universities if the government fails to release the withheld salaries of its members.

The unions in a joint letter signed by the President of SSANU, Muhammed Ibrahim, and General Secretary of NASU, Peters Adeyemi, questioned the rationale with which the government released four months of withheld salaries to members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities but failed to release the withheld salaries of non-academic staff in the period under review.

Also, the unions had written protest letters to the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, and the Minister of Education, Tahir Mamman on February 13, 2024, over the exclusion of the Non-Teaching staff from the payment of outstanding four months’ salaries.

The statement read: “We are therefore shocked that two weeks after the letters had been sent and received by the appropriate quarters, the Federal Government has remained quiet and refused to take any step towards addressing this very sensitive issue and it seems as if the Federal Government is taking our maturity for granted.

“We like to confirm through this medium once again to the Federal Government that the pressure on us has intensified and we have done everything possible within our ambit to prevail on our members to maintain industrial peace and tranquillity.

“While we appreciate the Federal Government for paying our academic counterpart, we also deem it necessary that our members are also paid.

The various feelers we are getting from our members in the universities and inter-university centres indicate that we can no longer guarantee and be able to sustain industrial peace in the university sector.

“We, therefore, use this opportunity once again to call on the Federal Government to do the needful within the next seven days as the Joint Action Committee of NASU and SSANU should not be held responsible should the wheel of administration and corporate governance be grounded to a halt in the university sector, as we have exercised enough patience.

“If nothing is done by the Federal Government to positively address this situation and respond to our previous letters to them, the members of the two unions may be forced to meet soon to take all lawful and stringent decisions on the matter.”

============

For More News or To Give Us Reports Join Our WhatsApp Group With This Link: https://chat.whatsapp.com/CdPVxGOPHCI5Kd4ALZduZ7 ….