From Sule Aliyu, Bauchi
Combined academic staff of five tertiary institutions have resolved to go on two-week warning strike over the delayed payment of their monthly salaries by the Bauchi State Government.
The institutions, through their joint action committee, said that they were embarking on the warning strike from July 19 to 30, 2022 to press home their demands from the government.
The institutions included Abubakar Tatari Ali Polytechnic, State College of Agriculture, Aminu Saleh College of Education, Misau College of Legal and Islamic Studies and Adamu Tafawa Balewa College of Education.
This is contained in a statement jointly signed by the Chairman and the Secretary General of Joint Action Committee (JAC), Abdulkadir Muhammad and Ibrahim Bala Abdallah, respectively, issued to journalists on recently.
They gave conditions for the strike which included immediate payment of all its members’ outstanding salaries.
The committee also called for immediate resumption of promotion implementation and annual increment which were abruptly stopped without any official communication since the inception of the present government in the state.
The staff of the institutions also strongly objected to the untimely imposition of staff into the proposed Contributory Pension Scheme, a venture which, it said, is being avoided by some federal institutions due to untold hardships caused on workers.
According to the committee’s executives, if it becomes necessary, staff of the institutions need to be engaged at all levels for necessary inputs for betterment and security of members’ rights.
The staff also called for the implementation of the consequential adjustments which, they argued, was never finalized with the organized labour, as they similarly rejected the deductions/proposed increment in deductions for the health contributory scheme otherwise called BASHMA.
The committee further explained that it is based on these and some other issues mentioned above that it held a meeting and resolved to convey the aforementioned information to the state government for possible positive development.
It stated that in the cause of seeking justice, they interacted with office of the Head of Civil Service, the Accountant General, the Commissioner of Education, Council Chairmen, and various stakeholders in the state.
“Equally of note is the laudable effort of His Excellency Sen.Bala Abdulkadir Muhammad, Executive Governor, in trying to clean and have a robust payroll payment system for the state,” it noted.
JAC has equally written to the government series of letters, containing details of its problems/ demands/anomalies and consequences but without tangible result.
It then said that it finally wrote a letter to the governor urging him to intervene in their plight, in which the committee issued a one-month ultimatum for the state government to address their demands.
