THE Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has described the half-salary payment to its members by the federal government following the suspension of its eight months old strike as an aberration.
It regretted that after it suspended the strike, the response of government towards ASUU’s demonstration of trust was the so-called ‘pro-rata’ payment for eighteen days as the October 2022 salaries of academics thereby portraying them as daily paid workers!
The union in a statement, titled: “We Are Intellectuals, Not Casual Workers”, also said the action of the government was in contravention of all known rules of engagement in any contract of employment for academics the world over.
ASUU’s president, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, disclosed this in the statement released Tuesday, following the National Executive Committee, NEC meeting it held on Monday in Abuja.
According to the statement, “paying academics on “pro-rata” basis, like casual workers, is unprecedented in the history of university oriented labour relations and therefore condemned this attempt to reduce Nigerian scholars to casual workers in its entirety.”