Fedpoly Bauchi ASUP embark on strike over salary scheme
Lecturers and non-academic staff of the Federal Polytechnic Bauchi have embarked on another seven days of strike to protest suspension of the ‘CONTISS 15’ salary scheme by the management of the institution which took effect last month January, 2017. The strike comes three days after polytechnics reopened after the one week warning strike embarked upon […]
Lecturers and non-academic staff of the Federal Polytechnic Bauchi have embarked on another seven days of strike to protest suspension of the ‘CONTISS 15’ salary scheme by the management of the institution which took effect last month January, 2017.
The strike comes three days after polytechnics reopened after the one week warning strike embarked upon by the national body of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) over dispute with the federal government on certain issues.
Chairman of the Federal polytechnic Bauchi chapter of ASUP, Ahmad Musa Mukaddas told journalists in Bauchi that the polytechnics management is the only one in the country that suspended the implementation of the salary scheme for staff on CONTISS 11 and below without giving explanation or notification to either the staff or their unions before taking the decision.
According to him, the strike was endorsed by the Joint Action Committee of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), Non Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics [NASUP] and the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Polytechnics (SSANIP).
Mukaddas added that the strike will be total as no academic and administrative activities will be carried out by members within the period of the industrial action.
"Faced with the inaction and insensitivity of the management of the polytechnic on the demand of the union to immediately and unconditionally reverse the decision to suspend the implementation of CONTISS 15 for staff on CONTISS 11 and below, the union had critically and exhaustively analyzed the very sad, painful and callous action of the management and rightly resolved in its emergency meeting of 8th February, 2017 to embark on a one-week strike effective 12 noon on 8th February 2017 to 12 midnight Tuesday 14th February, 2017 in the first instance.”
The ASUP chairman stated that despite the severity of the action taken to suspend the implementation of the CONTISS 15, the management has not within the intervening period demonstrated any passion, goodwill or enthusiasm to address the issue leaving the union with no option than to embark on the warning strike.
He informed that a monitoring team was constituted to ensure full compliance among the staff of the polytechnic.
In his reaction, the Polytechnic Deputy Rector Architect Sunusi Waziri Gumau debunked the claim by the unions that the management did not seek their opinion before suspending the salary scheme.
He said that they had requested to have audience with the management a week ago, but the lecturers were already in the nationwide industrial action directed by the ASUP national body.
He said that the internal strike embarked upon by the academic and non-academic staff of the institution was ill-timed and uncalled for when the rector Dr Shuaibu Musa had travelled to Abuja to handle pressing issues concerning the school.
Gumau further opined that the union leaders should have waited for the Rector to return and sit with them before embarking on such action.
Some students of the students of the polytechnic expressed dismay over the development noting that their academic calendar would be destabilised by the previous national strike and the current internal warning strike.
The students, Abdallah Abdallah and Sarah Jummai Magaji of the Office Technology Management [OTM] and Marketing departments respectively appealed to the management and staff to resolve their disputes amicably so that work would resume in the school.
They threatened that if they fail to resolve the issue, the students would pressurise the Students Union Government [SUG] to organise massive demonstration against both the school authority and the lecturers.