One of the strongest and most formidable industrial unions in the country, the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions, NASU, has raised the alarm, accusing the Federal Government of ploy to weaken it and other unions in the educational and other allied institutions.

According to NASU, non-implementation of collective bargaining agreements, CBAs, memorandums of understanding, MOUs, and memorandums of agreements, MOAs, freely signed by the government with unions in the sector, registration of other unions to unionise workers in places where unions are already organising the workers there against Section 3(2) of the Trade Unions Act (as amended); criminalising strikes in the sector, are policies of the government aimed at weakening the unions in the sector.

Speaking to Vanguard, General Secretary of NASU, Prince Peters Adeyemi, said: “Unions in tertiary education sector have been at the forefront of championing the cause of improved funding of tertiary education sector with a view to empowering institutions in the sector to be able to achieve the objectives for which they were established and also improve the conditions of service of their staff.

“Through union’s advocacy and consistent struggles, the Federal Government has come to openly accept that indeed, tertiary institutions are not adequately funded and promising to increase the annual budgets allocation to the sector. Intervention funds for improved funding of tertiary institutions such as Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFund, and the Revitalisation Fund that came in through the Needs Assessment, are funds recommended and pushed into existence by unions in the sector.

“The Federal Government rather than continue to partner with unions in the sector to see how best tertiary education institutions can be adequately funded, sees the unions as being overbearing and therefore has decided to and has deliberately embarked on implementing policies aimed at weakening the unions.

“The Non-Implementation of Collective Bargaining Agreements, CBAs, Memorandums of Understanding, MOUs, and Memorandums of Agreements, MOAs, freely signed by the government with unions in the sector,  registration of other unions to unionise workers in places where unions are already organising the workers there against Section 3(2) of the Trade Unions Act (as amended); criminalising strikes in the sector are all well thought out and executed policies of the government aimed at weakening the unions in the sector.

“We call on the Federal Government to at all time bear in mind that it is an employer and also the regulator of industrial relation practices in the country and must show employers in the private sector example of the global industrial relations best practices as a member of the International Labour Organisation, ILO, that has ratified ILO core Conventions.

“NASU calls on the Federal Government to desist from non- implementation of Collective Agreements freely entered into with unions, as this practice is open acceptance that it entered into the negotiations and signed the agreements in bad faith.

“NASU calls on the Federal Government to resist the temptation of indiscriminate registration of unions in workplaces where unions already exist in an attempt to weaken unions as this is contrary to provisions in the Trade Unions Act (as amended).

“We call on government to stop criminalising strikes that were foisted on unions as a result of government’s lack of proactiveness to apprehend workers disputes before it moves to the level of threatening industrial peace and strikes. We equally call on the Federal Government to be magnanimous enough in managing its dual role as an employer and a regulator of industrial relations practices in the country.”