The Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics, ASUP, has suspended its planned indefinite strike, billed to begin on Monday, April 6 after a fifteen-day notice which expired on Friday, April 3, 2020
A statement signed by ASUP’s President Anderson Ezeibe states that the lecturers’ decision to suspend the strike was borne out of the current national emergency occasioned by the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic.
ASUP was poised to begin industrial action in protest of government’s inability to honour an agreement entered into with it since 2010.
The union also highlighted other key aspects of the dispute with the government, which include; avoidable shortcomings in the deployment of the integrated payroll and personnel information system, IPPIS payment platform in Polytechnics in February 2020 salaries against the union’s understandings with the responsible agency of government.
The non-payment of salaries in some state-owned institutions in the country with some states owing to the lecturers as much as 17 months in salaries.
And the continued victimization of ASUP officials in some institutions as well as Nonrelease of the agreed revitalization fund in lieu of the anticipated implementation of the NEEDS Assessment survey report for public Polytechnics since 2014
Other areas of dispute are the nonconclusion of the renegotiation of the union’s 2010 agreement with the government and the violations of extant provisions of the Polytechnics Act (2019 Amendment) by governing councils of some Polytechnics
The ASUP statement stressed that government through its agencies has remained insensitive to these and many other issues over the years and has continued to demonstrate such attitude as seen in the delay in the release of March 2020 salaries of the academic staff of polytechnics, by so doing has encouraged the declaration of this impending strike action by the union.