Follow Us on Google
By Gabriel Dike
Less than 24 hours after the Federal Government proposed a new salary package for university lecturers, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), yesterday, insisted on Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) to arrive at any new salary structure for univerity lecturers.
Adamu at the end of a parley on Tuesday with Pro-Chancellors and Chairmen, Governing Council and Vice Chancellors of federal universities in Abuja announced a 35 per cent salary increment for professors and 23.5 per cent for other lecturers.
ASUU sources, however, told Daily Sun that at the meeting where the decision was taken, Minister of Education, Mallam Admau Adamu, did not bring anything new to the table as they considered his announcement as what the union had earlier rejected tagging it an award which negated the collective bargaining between the two parties.
The union described the education minister’s announcement as not new and not requiring summoning a meeting of the National Executive Council (NEC).
ASUU Lagos Zone Coordinator, Dr. Adelaja Odukoya, told Daily Sun that there was nothing to celebrate about the salary increment.
“What the minister did was to state what they did. All that has become history having failed to fly scandalously.Government is desperately seeking an escape route hence the setting up of the 14 member committee to revisit the abandoned Nimi Briggs renegotiation report, thus signalling the end of Adamu’s award and related matters.”
Odukoya said ASUU stood on its collective bargaining agreement captured in various negotiations and renegotiations committees.
He, however, described the composition of another committee by the education minister to review the renegotiation report as victory for ASUU.
“This is what the government ought to have done since,” he said.
Another chairman of ASUU told Daily Sun that the Federal Government is aware of the process for new salary increment describing what Adamu did as “mere award and announcement.”
He said ASUU would not shift its position on the collective bargaining agreement contained in the 2009 agreement and discussed in two other renegotiation committees.
Meanwhile, Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) yesterday picked holes in the claim by the Committee of Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities (CVCNU) that polytechnic chief lectures earn more than university professors.
ASUP in a statement signed by the Publicity Secretary, Abdullahi Yalwa, spoke against the backdrop of CVCNU submission to the Federal Government during the meeting of Vice Chancellors, Chairmen of Governing Councils of federal universities and Minister of Education on Tuesday that the salary of chief lecturers in polytechnics were higher than university professors.
“The position of the CVCNU was made in order to justify the legitimate demands of our sister union, the Academic Staff Union of Universities for a wage increase.While we understand the disposition of the CVCNU to support the aspirations of ASUU, putting out fallacious statements as it affects the emoluments of other workers in the other tiers of tertiary education in the country will only undermine same aspiration,” Yalwa said.
He said it was improper for CVCNU to have made such a statement at a time when the union is also renegotiating emoluments for its members and that it had the potential of creating the wrong impression about the emoluments of workers in polytechnics and colleges of education, thereby undermining ongoing renegotiation process between the federal and polytechnics.
