The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has thrown its support behind the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU)’s insistence on the payment of the withheld salaries of its members as a condition for ending its month-old strike.
The umbrella union said it was unfair for the Federal Government to invoke a no-work, no pay rule on university teachers, who were not the architects of the lingering strike.
NLC warned that its threat to embark on a nationwide strike over the lockdown of the universities had not been ruled out, thereby urging the government to “tone down its rhetorics and be more accommodating”.
Head of Information of the NLC, Benson Upah, disclosed the union’s position as students suggested Public-Private Partnership (PPP) as a way of ending the crises in the university system.
Upah, in an interview in Abuja, said the government should pay the six-month arrears so that the universities, which were shut down on February 14, could reopen.
His words: “At a point, having come this far, the government is expected to tone down its rhetorics instead of ramping them up. The government is expected to be more accommodating than it is.
“We know that Section 43 of the Trade Dispute Act provides that when there is strike action, there should be no payment in the period of the strike but it is not an absolute situation.
“When you have a condition precedent that makes necessary the happening or the execution of the sterile action, that provision cannot be invoked.”
