Begin strike after lockdown, NASU directs varsity workers

The Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions has directed its members in federal universities, polytechnics and Colleges of Education to commence a 14-day warning strike, the day they resume from the COVID-19 pandemic holiday.

The union said it gave the notice of strike action, due to salary disputes such as non-payment of salaries to some workers, short- payment of salaries to others and non-deduction of check-off dues.

The NASU General Secretary, Peters Adeyemi, said in Abuja on Monday that the union was protesting against the short-payment of its members’ salaries since February 2020.

It was learnt that the union had also written a petition to the Ministry of Labour and Employment on the issues.

Adeyemi said in the petition, “Regrettably, despite your assurances via a telephone discussion sometime in early April 2020, the officials of Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System have refused to effect appropriate corrections of all the anomalies observed by NASU members in the federal universities and intra-university centres, federal polytechnics and federal Colleges of Education up to this moment.

“It is unfortunate that the IPPIS has betrayed the leadership of NASU by deceiving us into accepting that the IPPIS platform will take on board all the peculiarities affecting our members and that there will be no problem if we key into the platform. Now we know better. The IPPIS promised to do a three-month experiment and it has come out disastrously and we are unable to allow this defective and deficient process to continue.”

Adeyemi noted that the union had conveyed a strike notice to its members through a letter with reference number NASU/CD/307/209.

“The 14-day warning strike will be used to protest the refusal of IPPIS to react positively to issues that affect the correct payment of its members’ salaries and other errors identified which have been placed before the IPPIS for correction,” he added.