Withheld Salaries: Senior Varsity Workers Begin Strike July 4

The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) will begin a nationwide strike on July 4, 2024, over the federal government’s failure to pay its members four months of withheld salaries.

The decision was reached at the end of the union’s 48th regular National Executive Council (NEC) meeting held in Edo State.

According to a communique signed by SSANU’s national president, Comrade Mohammed Haruna Ibrahim, the NEC’s decision aligned with the recommendations made during a meeting involving the Joint Action Committee (JAC) of both SSANU and Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU).

In 2022, SSANU and other university-based unions struck after the government failed to honour a collective bargaining agreement. The strike ended with an elaborate agreement signed by the then Muhammadu Buhari administration, including a non-victimisation clause.

However, the government’s subsequent selective payment of withheld salaries raised eyebrows. While colleagues received their dues, SSANU and NASU were left waiting. Despite promises from the ministers of education and labour, the arrears remained unpaid, leading to growing frustration among university workers.

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Two weeks ago, SSANU also expressed deep concern over the government’s handling of the withheld salaries, and it issued an ultimatum to the federal government to address the issue.

In the communique, the union accused the government of insensitivity and deliberate attempts to create chaos within the university system.

“The government has continued to dribble SSANU, even after the mutual agreement to suspend the one-week warning strike in March of this year.

“NEC in session deliberated on the matter and unanimously approved a long drawn comprehensive industrial action after concurrence with the Joint Action Committee meeting of SSANU and NASU scheduled for Thursday, 4th July 2024, if the government fails to pay the four months’ salary arrears,” the communique reads in parts.

“Frustrated by the slow pace of negotiations for a new national minimum wage, SSANU demanded swift government action to finalise and implement the wage to alleviate workers’ economic hardships.”

The union called on the government to resume payments of the N35,000 wage award immediately, pending the approval and implementation of a new National minimum wage. It urged state governments to address the pending wage awards for university staff.

The NEC urged the government to promptly reconstitute a committee to renegotiate the long-overdue 2009 SSANU/FGN agreement, among other issues, at the meeting.

While applauding the government’s reconstitution of university governing councils, the NEC criticised the exclusion of experienced educationists and technocrats, advocating for their inclusion to enhance university administration.

The communique further reads, “We therefore call on the governments of Enugu and Abia States, and indeed others thinking of implementing civil service rules in the university system, to desist immediately with the idea.

“The university community is not also spared of this malaise; last week, a Deputy Vice Chancellor of Usman Danfodio University, Sokoto, was attacked and killed by these marauding criminals while in transit. Insecurity has gradually crippled social and economic activities nationwide.

“NEC-in-session, therefore, urges the government to adopt drastic measures to combat this monster before it finally grinds the country to a halt.”