The Academic Staff Union of Universities has declared that their industrial strike continues until the Federal Government implements their demands.
This was made known to the public after the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige met with the leadership of the Academic Staff Union Of Universities (ASUU), today.
Chris Ngige said, “I sincerely thought ASUU and the Ministry of Education would have resolved the issues, which hopefully are not major areas of dispute, warranting industrial action. To my surprise, I came back, and the strike is still on. Be that as it may, it is the mandate of my Ministry to apprehend industrial disputes wherever they occur and we have apprehended this.
“ From this negotiation, we are having today, ASUU will appreciate that government means no harm. This is because even if there are still lapses in the implementation of the agreement, they are not such that will lead to industrial action. To that extent, we have to do everything possible to resolve this.
“It is my mandate to apprehend industrial disputes and this has been apprehended so we can discuss, and later expand to what is called tripartite plus meeting, involving members of NIREC who are top religious and traditional rulers, we cannot push aside. And that is as soon as we are done and agree on issues here.
“It should not be one month strike. In fact, there is nothing like one month strike or warning strike in labor parlance. Strike is strike. We want this to end as soon as possible, as we sort out all grey areas in the agreement as to the ILO Principles At Work allows for renegotiation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. So we go back to the draft agreement. We must avoid another situation where our children bear the brunt of two elephants fighting.”
