Few days to the conclusion of on-going semester examinations, the academic and non-academic staff of Kogi State Polytechnic have joined the organised labour unions in Kogi State in their state-wide strike action.
The Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics, ASUP, and Non-Academic Staff Union, (NASU), Kogi State chapters on Friday announced their resolve to down tool.
In a press release made available to newsmen, the unions said they are an affiliate of the NLC and have to abide by the directives of the union alongside their sister union, ASUU, has also joined in the strike action.
PRESS RELEASE BY ACADEMIC STAFF UNION OF POLYTECHNICS (ASUP) AND NON-ACADEMIC STAFF UNION (NASU), KOGI STATE POLYTECHNIC CHAPTERS, ON 1ST JULY, 2016 AT THE MAIN CAMPUS, LOKOJA.
In a time such as we are witnessing in Kogi State today; where Workers’ Unions and their members are apprehensive, disillusioned and dissatisfied with processes and manners through which the Kogi State Government has chosen to pay current salaries, arrears of salaries as well as other sundry entitlements of its employees, the Local Government Areas’ workers and pensioners, we the members of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnic (ASUP) and Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU), Kogi State Polytechnic Chapters cannot stand aloof and pretend not to be affected by these developments, hence, the imperative of this Press Statement.
We commend the Administration of His Excellency, Alhaji Yahaya Bello over his expressed and implied dream for a new and greater Kogi State. While we join other admirers of your Government to pray that the Almighty God grant you the strength, good health and wisdom to actualize the dreams enshrined in The New Direction, we have already started making our modest contributions to this cause by bearing six months of hunger and the deprivation of minimum living.
We categorically state that we are aware that the State Government had received three months Statutory Allocations and three months Value Added Tax (VAT) from the Federation Account, State’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), as well as a twenty billion (#20b) naira Bail-Out Funds before the recent defrayment of the arrears of four months out of the backlog of salaries, allowances and entitlements being owed our members by the State Government. We strongly state that the defrayment, though salutary, has not succeeded in plugging the deficit holes hitherto created by the irregular payment of salaries to our members. Rather, the hoopla from Government circle which accompanied the payment of these four months arrears brought undue attention on the purses of our members from families, friends and neighbours who were hunger-starved, disease-ridden and dying. It should be noted that the four months salaries recently paid to our members were arrears and not salary advance.
We are worried by the recent Zenith Bank sponsored SMS notification to our members that it had opened unsolicited bank account for each of them. We are also worried by the follow-up regularization forms which the same Zenith Bank brought to our institution for distribution to our members. In our considered opinion, these unilateral actions by Zenith Bank constitute a massive contravention of our members’ Fundamental Right to freedom of choice and privacies, just as it is a violation of the article of faith between our members and their respective banks. We therefore condemn in strong terms the unwarranted assault by Zenith Bank on our members’ psyche, integrity and privacies.
We are perturbed by the unusual, conspiratorial silence from the State Government on the audacity of Zenith Bank to over-reach government’s employees. We are compelled to believe that though there is yet to be seen or received any circular from Government which authorized Zenith Bank to issue bank accounts to our members, the recent coercion of Teachers, Local Government workers, State’s civil servants into assessing their salaries through unsolicited accounts opened for them by Access Bank and Zenith Bank is a clear pointer that the Kogi State Government has embarked on the path of stripping her workers of their rights of choice and privacies on wage related issues. We see this development as a preamble which; if unchecked, will lead to authoritarianism, enslavement, and total negation of workers’ rights away from the spirit of collective bargaining enshrined in our nation’s Labour Laws.
We are disheartened by the unfriendly and unfair banking environment presently prevalent in Kogi State as a result of the State Government’s unusual romance with Access, and Zenith Banks, a development which has compelled other banks to shut down their activities, and which has concomitantly made doing business with these other banks by our members and the general public one of agonizing and harrowing experience of untold economic hardships.
We are apprehensive that six-months into the tenure of this Government, no mention has been made about the 3rd February, 2016’s Agreement between the Kogi State Government and Organized Labour, wherein it was agreed that the State Government will set up a Committee to look into peculiar demands of Unions. We therefore remind the State Government that our demands remain:
• 50% Arrears of CONTISS
• The financial implementation and arrears of promotion
• CONTISS 15 Migration for Lower Cadre
• 4.6% Earned Allowance (for Non-Academic Staff)
RESOLUTIONS
• We call on the Kogi State Government to as matter of urgency address the current salary crisis as they affect other members of the civil and public services at all levels of governance in Kogi State so as to reduce the burden of sympathy presently placed on the lean resources of the Polytechnic workers.
• We demand that our two month salary arrears (May and June) for work already done, be paid immediately into each member’s salary account.
• We warn the Management of Zenith Bank to put an immediate stop to the aforementioned unethical and illegal drive for customer-base targeted at our members, retract earlier sponsored, unsolicited SMS information, as well as tendering unreserved apologies through SMS to our members for infringing on their rights and privacies.
• We advise the State Government to take judicial note of the recent unveiling drama between Zenith Bank and the sitting Governor of Ekiti State, and beware of any ‘honey in the carcass’ overture.
• We strongly advise the State Government to retrace her steps on the current logjam in the banking environment in our State, and play its Constitutional role as an impartial father to all legitimate economic interests in the State.
• We call on the State Government to immediately ensemble the Committee which would interface with our Unions, as well as other Unions of the Organized Labour, over our peculiar demands in the spirit of the 3rd February 2016 Agreement between the State Government and Organized Labour.
• Finally, we commend our members for their patience in allowing our students to round off their examination today.
We equally state unequivocally that in the spirit of oneness in Organized Labour, as well as the dictum, “an injury to one is an injury to all”, members are hereby directed to join immediately the on-going industrial action called by the Organized Labour in Kogi State.
Aluta Continua! Victoria Ascerta!!
