3 unions threaten strike over retirement age, funding in varsities

LEADERS of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, SSANU, the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Related Institutions, NASU and the National Association of Academic Technologists, NAAT, weekend gave government up till Wednesday to implement the 2009 agreement reached with unions especially university funding and the 65 years retirement age for members in the universities or face indefinite strike.
Already, the three unions had sent a letter to that effect to the Federal Government, through the Minister of Education, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, the Senate and House of Representatives, the Minister of Labour and other relevant government offices.
SSANU President, Comrade Samson Ugwoke and the NASU General Secretary, Comrade Peters Adeyemi, who made this position known, insisted that Wednesday was the deadline.
While Ugwoke said the unions were ready to shut down the varsities because of government’s recalcitrance, Adeyemi said the only thing that would guarantee stability and industrial peace in the universities was if members were assured of enjoying the 65 years retirement age and the bill to that effect was passed.
It would be recalled that a resolution was reached with the unions by the government on October 10 on the issue of 65 years retirement age, improvement on the funding of varsities, earned allowance and career structure for Technologists CONTISS 14 and 15, while the Implementation Monitoring Committee on the 2009 FG/NASU/SSANU/NAAT agreements is to conclude discussions and present report on November 22.
It was signed by the Minister of Education and the two permanent secretaries from the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Labour for government while Comrades Ugwoke, Adeyemi and NAAT President, Abdulatef Jokomba signed for their respective unions. A letter by the Joint Action Committee on NAAT, NASU and SSANU was also written to the Minister of education, dated November 10 and sent to other relevant stakeholders.
Comrade Ugwoke, said: “Yes, by December we will shut down all the universities in the country. The situation is clear, because on October 10, 2011 after the seven days warning strike, we had a meeting with the Ministers of Labour and that of Education including their permanent secretaries and the leadership of the three unions, SSANU, NASU and NAAT.
“At the end of the meeting, there was an MoU signed with the three unions that by November 22, 2011, all committees must have completed discussions on the pending issues that had not been addressed and to be presented. But as I am talking to you now, government has not called us for a meeting.
“We even wrote a reminded letter urging government to know the sacrosanct of the November 22nd 2011 MOU and that after that day; we are giving them extra one week to November 30th 2011 in which we will be pushed to resume our suspended strike. To actualize this, the highest ruling body of NASU had met and deliberated on the matter, and SSANU National Executive Council would be meeting from November 30th to December 2nd 2011 at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka to also discus on the matter.
He regretted that since the signing of the t 65 years retirement age for their members in 2009, they have been retiring them en masse at 60, saying, “since that agreement was signed government has continue to retire them at 60 instead of 65, allowances of our members have not been approved and universities are not paying it, funding of the university has remain a mirage. So what do we do?”
Comrade Adeyemi, said: “We had that agreement that we give government up to 22nd of November and that 22nd has passed and naturally we also had a meeting of the joint unions, that is NASU, SSANU and NAAT and we wrote another letter to the government to say we will give them up to the end of the month. I think my idea about that is not that when the month ends we will just start the strike.
“My idea about that is that because we also had some information about what is going on right now at the National Assembly.
This bill has gone through the first and the second reading, so it shows clearly that some measures of actions is going on but if by 30th we meet and we find out that we are not sufficiently encouraged by what has happened,  of course it is a suspended strike, we will have no option than to reinstate the strike.
That is the position; it is as straight forward as that. We will review the situation by 30th and if we are convinced that there is a need for us to start a strike we will resume the strike.”