…From Dele Ogunyemi, Ibadan…
Barely two weeks after the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) suspended its five- month-old strike pressurizing the authorities for adequate funding of the ivory towers, the Senior Staff Union in Colleges of Education, Nigeria (SSUCOEN) has embarked on a similar nation-wide industrial action starting with what it tagged “a seven-day warning strike” that kicked off on Monday.
The aggrieved senior staff of Colleges of Education are protesting the alleged failure on the part the Federal Government and some owner state governments to implement many of the agreements reached with the union by the government in 1999 just like the authorities reneged on the agreements reached with ASUU before the university lecturers proceeded on their own strike.
Leadership of the striking Senior Staff Union in Colleges of Education have threatened to commence “an indefinite total strike action” if the on-going “warning strike” which expires next Tuesday failed to achieve a positive result from the government.
Addressing journalists in Ibadan, Oyo State capital on Thursday on the justification for the ongoing warning strike, the South West Chairman of the union, Comrade Lere Oladipo, declared pointedly that “the warning strike might prelude a proposed full- blown, indefinite and unprecedented strike ever to be embarked upon by the Non-Teaching Staff in the College of Education System in Nigeria.”
Comrade Oladipo, who on behalf of the national body, led some other officers to the press conference, reeled out part of the 2009 agreement which the Federal government and some state governments allegedly signed with the union and which they had not addressed ever since.
They include, among others, “non-full implementation of CONTEDISS salary structure, non-implementation of 65 years retirement age for non-teaching staff in many Colleges of Education (particularly state colleges), non-full implementation of Consolidated Salary Structure for Registrars and Bursars of Colleges of Education, non-implementation of sabbatical leave appointment, non-implementation of the Federal Government decision on Demonstration Primary Schools, aimed at integrating the staff of the schools into the mainstream of the College”.
The other areas are “non-approval/implementation of migration for officers on CONTEDISS 11 and below, contrary to paragraph 3 of the Federal Ministry of Education’s approval on same, non-release of the Approved New Scheme of Service for Colleges of Education, total rejection of the proposed implementation of the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS), non-payment of responsibility allowance to non-teaching staff not entitled to overtime allowance, whereas it had been implemented in the University system”.
The aggrieved Senior Staff Union in Colleges of Education in Nigeria maintained that they had embarked on the ongoing “warning strike” because of inadequate funding of the colleges both at the Federal and state levels, an ugly development which they claimed had been engendering inability to provide reasonably adequate teaching and municipal facilities, as well as provision for staff welfare, training and development.
Their spokesman declared: “While the Federal Colleges of Education had implemented the agreement on 65 years retirement age for its staff, many state colleges have not domesticated it, thereby affecting negatively the mobility of labour. While Bursars, Registrars, Provosts who are principal officers in Colleges of Education are earning a little below N400,000 per month, their counterparts in the universities earn between N1.4m and N1.5m per month. This is grossly unfair and unjustifiable, and a stop must be put to it.”