The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has implemented a no-pay-no-work policy in response to the Federal Government’s continued delay in the payment of its members’ salaries.
ASUU’s National President, Professor Chris Piwuna, disclosed this in an interview in Abuja on Friday.
Piwuna accused the government of deliberately frustrating members of the union following their withdrawal from the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS).
The Federal Government had earlier announced the removal of both academic and non-academic staff of higher institutions from the controversial IPPIS platform, which ASUU and other university-based unions have long criticised.
Speaking in an interview, Professor Piwuna said, “Since the departure from IPPIS, the salaries of lecturers have consistently been delayed. We don’t get paid the way other workers get paid. It is either we are paid 10 days into a new month. With the economic challenges in the country, it has not been easy for our members.
“Look at June now, we have not been paid, our members can’t celebrate Sallah properly. So, we have now resolved that since the government want to delay our salaries, we can’t continue to teach. We want to teach but we can’t teach without our salaries. We have decided to invoke the no-pay-no-work policy.
“Branches have started to adopt. What this means is that lecturers boycott classes pending the time that salaries are paid.”
In a similar vein, the National President of the Joint Action Committee of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU), Mohammed Ibrahim, condemned the Federal Government over the persistent salary delays.
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He said “Last month, we had to write a series of letters asking why our salaries were not released. No explanation was given.
“University workers are simply treated like second-class citizens. Remember, we have written to the Accountant General of the Federation and copied the ministers of education and labour. The labour ministry wrote to us to say that they have reached out to the minister of education, but you can see that nothing has changed this month either.”
