Don’t intimidate us, pay our 11 months salary arrears – Oke-Ogun Polytechnic lecturers blasts governing council

Members of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnic (ASUP), The Oke-Ogun Polytechnic, Saki chapter, on Monday refused to sign the register opened by the Governing Council (GC) of the institution to compel them to end their strike.

They had embarked on the action over the non-payment of 11 months salaries.

DAILY POST learnt that the Governing Council of the polytechnic had Thursday after an emergency meeting held at the Oyo state Ministry of Education, suspended the activities of the academic staff union and directed that all academic activities should resume at the institution immediately.

But, the workers despite the threat refused to sign the register opened by the management, and instead converged on the car park of the institution’s Administrative Building to describe the threat as illegal.

The striking workers in a press statement jointly signed by its Chairman, Comrade Muyiwa Olawumi and Secretary, Comrade Sikiru Isiak, described the purported suspension of the activities of the union as “unconstitutional, illegal, null and void”.

The union declared the council’s action suspending its activities as “outdated, humiliating, degrading, archaic, ex – communicating, barbaric, embarrassing, dictatorial, provocative and undemocratic”.

ASUP maintained that the Governing Council’s action of coercing lecturers to resume was uncalled for when negotiation window as contained in its (union) response to the purported Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) had not been exhausted.

The union also noted that the Governing Council cannot go outside its statute to usurp the power vested in the Registrar of Trade Unions under the Trade Union Act.

The workers also demanded the “outright payment of all outstanding arrears, 10 months unremitted cooperative deductions, 7 months of full salary.”

The striking lecturers declared that “our patience and sacrifice have been stretched beyond limit”.