8-month Salary Arrears: ASUU Holds Emergency NEC Meeting
BY TEMI OHAKWE, ABUJA – The Academic Staff Union of the University (ASUU) is to hold an emergency meeting of its National Executive Council (NEC), at the University of Calabar today, being Sunday, December 4, 2022.
A member of the ASUU NEC disclosed this to journalists in Abuja on Saturday, November 3, 2022, said that the dicey issue of withheld and amputated salaries will come up for discussion to enable members of the Union take a position.
He however explained that the meeting is also part of its quarterly NEC activities for the fourth quarter, adding that lots of other issues would be tabled for discussions in the overall interest of tertiary education in the country.
ASUU suspended its eight-month old strike on October 14, 2022, a development that led the Federal Government to pay the University lecturers ‘mutilated’ salary for the month just as it withheld the months in which the lecturers were strike.
The Government is insisting the pro-rata payment was hinged on the fact ASUU members suspended their strike two weeks into the month, stressing that it would not shift grounds on the implementation of the “No Work, No Pay” policy.
However, ASUU vehemently protested against the ‘mutilated’ payment saying that they are not casual workers and can therefore not be paid in bits and pieces even as it declared that the Government policy is against the International Labour Organisation Charter to which Nigeria is a signatory.
The refusal of the Federal Government not to pay the University lecturers their eight months’ salaries had led to a series of protests across the country by some of the chapters of ASUU.
