ASUU Strike: FG stops University Lecturers’ salary

■ ASUU faults conduct of Post-UTME without members

The Federal Government has invoked the ‘no work, no pay’ labour rule against striking university lecturers as their industrial action enters the 93rd day with no end in sight.

Some of the federal university vice chancellors have not paid the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) members their August and September salaries in compliance with the government’s directive.
Some branch chairmen of ASUU see the government and vice chancellor’s move as an attempt to break the rank of their members, insisting that their members are resolute on the ongoing strike.

Some ASUU branch chairmen told Daily Sun that text messages were sent to vice chancellors to apply the ‘no work, no pay’ labour rules to academic staff on strike and that the decision had affected the payment of salary of non-academic staff in the university system.

According to one of the branch chairmen, he and his exco confronted their university management over the salary delay and the he showed them the text message asking them not to pay salary to ASUU members.
He stressed that the ‘no work, no pay’ labour rule had never worked, pointing out that ASUU has a counter-measure, which was ‘no pay, no work,’ and that the union was not on strike because of salary increment.

Sources stated that at the ASUU Ibadan zonal meeting held at the University of Lagos, the Vice Chancellor, Prof Rahmon Bello, tried in vain to defend the delay of September salary.
Also, the ASUU chairman, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Dr. Biodun Badmus, told Daily Sun that the vice chancellor got text messages not to pay salaries and revealed that the university had not received August salary from government.

His words: “Any vice chancellor that has paid August salary did so using the university’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). We are not bothered about the salary issue, because at the end of the day, they will still pay us.”

Meanwhile, the union has faulted the conduct of Post-UTME examination by the universities during the strike without the involvement of academic staff and urged the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) to intervene on the issue.