Strike: ASUP Threatens Federal Government

The Academic staff Union of Polytechnics, (ASUP) may embark on another nation-wide strike of activities if recent reports by the union are anything to go by.

Naij.com authoritatively gathered that the union is not comfortable with a recent circular dated 26 January, 2015 from the office of Honourable Minister of Education purported to have suspended the implementation of CONTISS 15 in Polytechnics without recourse to the spirit and letters of agreement with the unions in the sector.

According to a statement sent to our correspondent by the union, the act is not acceptable and is likely to upset the union to take its last resort which is the industrial action.

The statement signed by Usman Nda-Umar, Monday P. Jegede and Peter Adeyemi all general secretaries of ASUP, SSANIP and NASU respectively, read in part: “Recall that the unions in the sector were on strike throughout the preceding year following the refusal of government to act responsibly and honour agreements signed with the unions.

“In deference to the then newly appointed Hon Minister’s plea for time, and to his strong assurances that the thorny issues would be resolved within three months, the unions resolved to give the government a benefit of the doubt and suspended the strike in July 2014.

“Unfortunately and sadly, six (6) months after, and despite repeated assurances in several meetings with the Honorable Minister of Education, what we get is the suspension of a statutory salary structure (CONTISS 15) approved by the late President Umaru Musa Yar’dua, which implementation dates back to 2009″.

The aggrieved union believes that it is being shortchanged by the Ministry of Education, especially its Minister, who has refused to take any better step than his predecessor, Barrister Nyesom Wike, during whose tenure the union was plunged into serious crisis.

“It is also noteworthy that no reasonable progress has been made on the other issues as promised. The White Paper on the Visitations to Federal Polytechnics is still yet to be released five (5) years after the exercise, the discrimination against Polytechnic graduates has heightened in the labour market due to non removal of ceiling on their career progression, the Polytechnic sector is still being grossly underfunded, the National Polytechnics Commission (NPC) is still yet to be established, not much progress has been made in the review of the Polytechnic Act, among other demands.

“The Needs Assessment of public polytechnics has been abandoned nine months after the exercise was concluded and the report submitted to government. Disturbingly, the rot and decay in the polytechnic system on account of incompetent governance and administration deepens progressively as supervision appears extensively compromised.

“The Unions also condemn in strongest possible terms the culture of impunity and reckless abuse of power by the Governing Councils and managements of Federal Polytechnic Oko and Ado-Ekiti.

“The Councils have overreached their powers by proscribing duly registered unions. An action that is ultra vires to their powers and a wanton breach of the Trade Union’s Act. This is not acceptable,” the union stated.

However, it noted that, “characteristically, we have maintained the highest standards of diligence, patience and due process in our engagement with government and its agencies. But let these virtues not be misconstrued for fragility.

“We, therefore, call on the Honorable Minister of Education to without delay reverse the purported circular suspending the implementation of CONTISS 15 and cause the Governing Councils and management of Federal Polytechnic, Oko and Ado-Ekiti to reverse their purported proscription of the unions.

“We strongly caution that our goodwill should be not taken for granted. Failure to reverse this retrogressive and illegitimate directive will leave our unions with no other choice but resort to the last option.

“We also demand that all outstanding issues in our portfolio of demands be concluded forthwith without further delay to avert a completely avoidable breakdown in industrial peace in the polytechnics”.

Meanwhile, the federal government yesterday launched the ‘Youth Entrepreneurship Strategy’ in Abuja.

The government also launched an online portal to serve as a common platform for all of federal government’s diverse youth training entrepreneurship interventions.