The Congress of University Academics (CONUA) has asked the Federal Government to pay its members the remaining part of their withheld salaries.
The union, a breakaway group from the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), asked the government to stop lumping up its members’ issues with those of ASUU, saying they never joined the strike in 2022.
In a statement by its national president, ‘Niyi Sunmonu, CONUA commended President Bola Tinubu for paying four out of the seven and-a-half months of their withheld salaries, but pleaded that the outstanding months be paid since they didn’t join the strike.
Sunmonu said failure to pay CONUA members for the remaining months would mean that the government doesn’t appreciate other measures other than a strike to pursue the demands of academics.
The body also called on the government to expedite action on the implementation of the 35 and 23.5 per cent salary increment for staff of tertiary institutions through a memo from the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission (NSIWC) announced in September, and which was supposed to be effective from January 2023.
The group also urged the government to speed up efforts aimed at repositioning the country, and to address the pains of the poor due to economic hardship.
The statement read in part: “CONUA has consistently maintained that it never declared and was not part of any strike action, and since we neither called for, nor joined any strike, withholding the three and a half months salaries of members contravenes section 43 (1) (b) of the Trade Disputes Act, which states that “where any employer locks out his workers, the workers shall be entitled to wages and any other applicable remunerations for the period of the lock-out and the period of the lock-out shall not prejudicially affect any rights of the workers being rights dependent on the continuity of the period of employment.”
In 2022, the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari invoked a ‘no work, no pay’ policy, and withheld the workers’ salaries during the eight-month strike.
However, last October, President Tinubu directed the payment of four of the withheld salaries to the university workers, raising concerns as to the fate of other unions.
