Oke-Ogun Poly lecturers denounce governing council

Members of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) of Oke-Ogun Polytechnic, on Monday refused to sign the register opened by the governing council of the institution to compel them to end the strike they had embarked on over the non-payment of their 11-month salary arrears.
It was reported that the governing council of the polytechnic had on Thursday after an emergency meeting held at the Oyo State Ministry of Education, suspended the activities of the academic staff union and directed that all academic activities should resume at the institution immediately.
But the workers, in spite of the threat, refused to sign the register opened by the management, and instead, converged on the car park of the institution’s administrative building to denounce the threat which they regarded as illegal.
The striking workers in a press statement jointly signed by its chairman, Comrade Muyiwa Olawumi and secretary, Comrade Sikiru Isiak, described the purported suspension of the activities of the union as unconstitutional, illegal, humiliating, dictatorial, provocative and undemocratic.
ASUP maintained that the governing council’s bid to coerce lecturers to resume work was uncalled for when negotiation window as contained in the union’s response to the purported Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) had not been exhausted.
The union also noted that the governing council cannot go outside its statute to usurp the power vested in the registrar of trade unions under the Trade Union Act.
The workers also demanded the “outright payment of all outstanding arrears, 10 months unremitted cooperative deductions, 7 months of full salary.” “Our patience and sacrifice have been stretched beyond limit,” the striking lecturers declared.

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