Stalemate over unearned salaries: CSOs vow to mobilize against ASUU

Advertisements

SOME Civil Society Organisations namely the Nigerian Project Initiative, NPI and the Initiative to Save Democracy, ISD, on Sunday, stated that they arr mobilising against the striking Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU.

They are unhappy over the demand for the payment of six months’ salaries by the ASUU before it would call of its strike.

However, the groups described ASUU as empty, self-centered, and tiresome.

“The demand by ASUU to be paid for the months its members were on strike is hollow, self-centered, and vexatious,” the CSOs NPI AND ISD, in a joint statement by its chairmen Mohammed Salihu and Akinloye James, said.

“The fact that other academic unions with nearly identical goals have chosen to resume work while ASUU members have chosen to demand remuneration for labor they did not perform is particularly upsetting.

“What company does that? Would it not be disastrous, for instance, if the government listened to them, since NASU and SSANU, who have agreed to resume work, would then resort to striking in order to obtain the same pay they lost during the strike?

“It is a requirement in labor relations that unions maintain a strike fund, and ASUU has acknowledged compensating its union members through its president. It is clear from this that ASUU is now demanding double pay for its members for work that has not yet been completed.

“We expect ASUU to rush back to work at this time and look forward to repairing the damage that has been done through the strike instead of this resort to financial blackmail,” the statement reads. “This is for the sake of our students who have missed out on due to the strike,” they stated.

The two unions declared: “ASUU has lost it this time and we dare say that if by this week that ASUU sticks to its selfish demands we would be compelled to lay siege to ASUU offices across the country given that all men of good conscience are against ASUU.”

They also pledged to rally other civil society organizations for a confrontation with ASUU.