Workers go on strike over non-payment of salaries

olamide oni

July 13, 2016 8:54 AM

The action, which led to the halt of academic and non-academic activities in the institution, saw the aggrieved staff blocking the entrance of the campus.

Ekiti State University

Workers at the

Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities (NASU) National Association of Area Technologists (NAT) and Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), among others were the unions which participated in the mass action.

The staff also explained that they have been receiving 20 percent of their net pay since January this year. They maintained that the management had failed to live up to its responsibilities due to the failure of the state government to pay subventions since January this year.

Speaking about the plight of the workers, SSANU chairman, Mr. Kolapo Olatunde, said: “the last subvention the State Government released the to the university was in December, last year.

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“The government has erroneously believed that the management takes care of the full salary payment without the subvention. But the reality is that we have only been receiving 20 percent of our salaries since January till date with deductions, and even the deductions were not remitted into the accounts of the cooperative societies on campus.

“We also heard that the state government is not putting EKSU on the agenda of the bailout from the federal government given erroneous impression that all is well with us, whereas we have been suffering in silence," he said.

The chairman of the National Association of Area Technologists, Engineer Awogbemi Omobola, attributed the non-payment of the staff’s full salary to the fact that the institution has exhausted all its available resources to pay net salaries of workers.

He said: “The institution has even been struggling to augment the payment of 20% of salary with N250 million monthly from the IGR. We have remained patient with the management because it has been trying, but with this protest, we want to tell Ekiti and the world that they should not allow the institution to collapse as this is the only asset the state has."

olamide oni