The leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), on Monday, issued a 4-week ultimatum to the federal government to resolve all issues it has with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and all other tertiary institution-based unions.
It threatened that should the federal government fail to conclude negotiations with all tertiary institution-based unions within the stipulated time, it would not hesitate to take drastic actions by activating all the necessary instruments.
The President of the NLC, Joe Ajaero, who stated this at Labour House, Abuja, during an interaction with Labour Correspondents, revealed that they have found out that affiliate unions have been holding crucial meetings with government officials without mandate, hence the reasons many agreements were not honoured.
The interactive session was held after the conclusion of a meeting between the NLC and leaders of tertiary institution-based unions including ASUU, SSANU, NASU and NAAT.
ASUU had last week Sunday, through its President Prof. Chris Piwuna, announced a two-week “total and comprehensive” strike following the expiration of a 14-day ultimatum issued to the government on September 28.
The union premised its decision to shut down universities for two weeks upon unresolved issues relating to staff welfare, infrastructure, salary arrears, and the implementation of the 2009 ASUU-FGN agreement.
However, the Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, said the union shouldn’t have gone on any strike because talks had reached a final phase, and that the government had released N50bn for earned academic allowances and allocated N150bn in the 2025 budget for a needs assessment to be disbursed in three installments.
But speaking during the interactive session, Ajaero stressed that going forward, the congress or any of its affiliate unions would no longer have meetings with such government officials without mandates, who are supposed to make the agreements signed a reality.
The labour leader also berated the government for declaring the “no-work-no-pay policy”.
He said, “We have decided to give the federal government four weeks to conclude all negotiations in this sector. They have started talks with ASUU but the problem in this sector goes beyond ASUU.
“That is why we are extending this to four weeks. If after four weeks this negotiation is not concluded, the organs of the NEC will meet and take a nationwide action that all workers in the country, all unions in the country will be involved so that we get to the root of all this.
“The era of signing agreements, negotiations and threatening the unions involved, that era has come to an end.
“The policy, the so-called policy of no work, no pay, will henceforth be no pay, no work. You can’t benefit from an action you instigated. We have discovered that most, 90% of strike actions in this country are caused by failure to obey agreements,” Ajaero said.
