Strike: ASUU shuns FG`s negotiation meeting
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) yesterday shunned a meeting on the request of the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, to resolve the industrial action embarked upon by the union.
The meeting scheduled to hold at the minister’s conference room did not hold due to the absence of the ASUU members.
The minister told reporters that the government had earlier made an offer to ASUU through the Ministry of Education and that “late yesterday (Monday) ASUU got back to us with their counter offer.”
He said that by then the failed negotiation meeting had been scheduled, saying the government side needed to deliberate on their counter offer before having a reconciliation meeting to further discuss areas of disagreement.
He said, “That is the position right now. We are holding a government side meeting, while, the Minister of Education is also holding meeting and we will meet later today (yesterday) and formalize our position.
“Tomorrow is Federal Executive Council meeting and there are aspects that we will need FEC approval to go on with. Thereafter, we will meet with the ASUU team either tomorrow evening or Thursday morning, which ever will be more convenient,” the minister said.
But ASUU in a swift reaction through its President Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi said the union had held talks with the representatives of government as well as consulted with members nationwide on steps to be taken to immediately resolve the lingering crisis.
He restated that the issues that led to the strike had not been resolved by the Federal Government.
Prof Ogunyemi said, “The dispute are registration of Nigerian Universities Pension Management Company (NUPEMCO), fractionalisation of salaries in federal universities and gross under funding/non funding of state universities, and arrears and implementation of Earned Academic Allowance. Other issues are release of fund for revitalization of public universities as spelt out in the 2013 Memorandum of Understanding, guidelines for retirement benefits of professors in line with 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement, Treasury Single Account (TSA) and withdrawal of support for universities staff primary schools.”
The ASUU president narrated that on Thursday, the union met with officials of the Ministry of Education and Labour and Employment where it was agreed that the union should consult and “revert back to government.”
He said, “Following due consultations, we have collated the views of our members on the offers from government in dispute in the letter of 16th August, 2017. These views were submitted to the Federal Government via our letter dated 28th August 2017.
“As we await the Federal Government’s action on our letter, we hope that it would not be long before we receive a positive response which will bring an end to the dispute.”