Michael Imoudu National Institute for Labour Studies (MINILS) has commenced meeting with stakeholders to end various unions strike that has paralysed academic activities in public universities in the country..
The stakeholders according to the institute include Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Ministries of Education and Labour as well as students.
Already, the institute said it had met with ASUU, and had gone through the list of the union’s demands.
“We are including the students in the intervention as they have taken to the roads. This is worrisome,” the institute said.
Director General of MINILS Comrade Issa Aremu told reporters in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital on the sidelines of the commencement of the institute’s 40th anniversary.
The grand finale of the anniversary comes up next year.
Comrade Aremu added that in every dispute “there are disputes of interest and right. Out of the list of ASUU’s demands only two are disputes of right and they are stagnation of salaries since 2009 and refusal of government to review agreements reached with ASUU since 2009.
“I am with ASUU on these two. We cannot deliver quality education with poorly paid workers. It is unacceptable. I came from a sector in which agreements are reviewed every year. That is the way to increase wages.
“The other demands of poor funding and payment system are disputes of interest. ASUU needs a different approach to all these.”
Said the former national chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC): “When ASUU tabled it demands before us, we challenged them on the payment system they are asking for. How would employees be talking about separate payment system for themselves?”
If employees are asking for that what would be the existence of employers of labour.
“My argument is that when ASUU was not on strike no university in Nigeria is ranked among the top 100 in the world. And I went to a university which was among the best in the world. In deed, I am a product of the university that worked.”
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