Asuu say no FG ....strike continue

The Federal Government’s new offer of
enhanced academic allowances has been
rejected by the Academic Staff Union of
Universities, ASUU, insisting that government
should first implement in full the 2009
agreement before any other negotiation could
take place.
Speaking to Vanguard, yesterday, National
President of ASUU, Dr. Nasir Fagge, said after
consultations with branch chairmen of the
union on the new government offer,
members rejected it, saying accepting the
offer meant starting negotiations afresh.
“They wanted to make an offer on one of the
issues in dispute. They said they are more
interested in the earned academic allowances,
so they said they want to make an offer just
like they did in the first instance.
“We told them that the issue is not making
offers on any item in the agreement. The
issue is implementing the agreement. We
have consulted our principal (branch
chairmen) and our principal is of the opinion
that the agreement should just be
implemented.
“If we say we are going to start talking about
offers and rejections and acceptance, it
means that we are going back to re-
negotiation.
“That is the situation and of course, they
asked whether we will still attend tomorrow’s
meeting where they will discuss
implementation of the needs assessment
report, we told them that we will be there.”
The ASUU boss, who said it seemed the
Federal Government wanted to reduce the
whole agreement to earned academic
allowances, said “for us, the agreement has
many other things that are very vital for
revitalizing university system in this country.”
Fagge said the branch chairmen who were
contacted on the development rejected any
move that would end up in government
abandoning an agreement that was willingly
signed and that the union did not want a
development where a component of the
agreement would be singled out by
government.
“They said (branch leaders) that are not
interested in re-negotiating the agreement for
now, when you implement the agreement
then we will talk about re-negotiation,” he
said.