The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has revealed why nothing concrete came out of its latest meeting with the federal government.
At the meeting which ended stalemate on Tuesday, the government proposed a Consolidated University Academic Salary Structure (CONUASS) to ASUU.
However, ASUU said it declined the offer because of the manner with which the federal government presented it.
The union made this known in a statement by Emmanuel Osodeke, its president, on Thursday.
Osadeke said the proposal made to the Nimi Briggs-led negotiation committee was presented in a “take-it-or-leave-it” manner.
The ASUU president said the proposal was against the tenet of collective bargaining, noting that such posturing by the federal government portends danger for the lecturers mentality and the university system as a whole.
“At the commencement of the renegotiation of the 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement on 16th March 2017, both the Federal Government and ASUU Teams agreed to be guided by the following principles as their terms of reference which includes, reversal of the decay in the Nigerian University System, in order reposition it for its responsibilities in national development,” the statement reads.
“Government’s surreptitious move to set aside the principle of collective bargaining, which is globally in practice, has the potential of damaging lecturers’ psyche and destroying commitment to the university system. This is, no doubt, injurious to Nigeria’s aspiration to become an active player in the global knowledge industry.
“Rejecting a salary package arrived at through collective bargaining is a repudiation of government’s pronouncements on reversing ‘brain drain’.
“The Munzali Jibril-led renegotiation committee, submitted the first draft agreement in May 2021 but government’s official response did not come until about one year later.
“Again, the ‘award’ presented by the Nimi Briggs-led team came across in a manner of take-it-or-leave-it on a sheet of paper. No serious country in the world treats their scholars this way.
“Over the years, particularly since 1992, the union had always argued for, and negotiated a separate salary structure for academics for obvious reasons.
“ASUU does not accept any awarded salary as was the case in the administration of Gen. Abdulsalam Abubakar. The separate salary structures in all FGN/ASUU agreements were usually the outcome of collective bargaining processes.” CONTINUE READING………….
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