NAAT vows to resist salary disparity among varsity workers, rejects Briggs Committee’s report

The National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT) has reiterated its resolve to resist any attempt to institute and implement further disparity in the salary of workers in universities in the country.

While expressing dissatisfaction with the Nimi Briggs Committee Report, the union maintained that the committee did not involve its leadership in the negotiation process, therefore would not accept the resolutions of the committee.

The Briggs-led committee was set up in March by the Federal Government to oversee the negotiations with the four university-based unions and submitted its report to the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, over a month ago.

Speaking to journalists in Abuja, NAAT President, Ibeji Nwokoma, said, “It is needless to say that we are indeed in trouble as a nation, if for five months or thereabouts that all our public universities have been forced to shut their gates against academic activities, the Federal Government of Nigeria has remained adamant and recalcitrant in addressing these germane issues.

“It may interest you to note that in addition to FGN/NAAT 2009 Agreement, several meetings were held between FGN and NAAT with the Minister of Labour and Employment as the facilitator and conciliator, all of which resulted in many Memorandum of Understanding (MOUs) including that of 2017, 2020 and 2021. In all of these, the majority of the issues with timelines were either partially or not implemented at all.

“These demands include but are not limited to; non full implementation of the 2009 FGN/NAAT Agreement; refusal to release the enabling circular for the implementation of CONTISS 14 & 15 for Academic Technologists; non-payment of the arrears of Earned Allowances to our members; non conclusion of the 2009 FGN/NAAT Agreement Re-negotiation; non provision of funds for upgrade of public universities laboratories/workshop and studios.

“It is also important to remind the government and the general public that the strike action embarked upon by NAAT is legitimate having complied with all laid down procedures and in line with ILO Convention 87. Therefore, the stoppage of the payment of our salaries and allowances is unlawful, draconian and contravenes the international best labour practices.

“Since the commencement of the re-negotiation of the FGN/NAAT 2009 Agreement, in all, NAAT held three meetings with the committee under the chairmanship of Dr Wale Babalakin, an inaugural meeting with Professor Munzali Jibril-led committee and also three meetings with Professor Nimi Briggs Committee. In All the meetings held, at no time was the issue of salaries and allowances of members of NAAT negotiated.

“Therefore, this has been a concern to all members of NAAT, especially the leadership, bearing in mind that all negotiations shall be based and anchored on Principles of Collective Bargaining as contained in the ILO Convention 98. Hence, it will be immoral to award any percentage increase in salary or allowances to members of NAAT unilaterally.

“For emphasis’s sake, NAAT rejects any action that negates the Principles of Collective Bargaining as it concerns current and any other struggle especially as it relates to salaries and allowances.

“While the leadership of the union has restrained itself from rushing to conclusion on the news that has gone viral on social media concerning allocation of percentage salary increase to unions, this clearly is informed by the fact that as a responsible union we found the news to be fake and as stated earlier, it negates all known laws of collective bargaining. However, if the axiom that behind every smoke, there is a fire is true, we wish to clearly state the position of our union.

“NAAT will resist any attempt under any guise to introduce disparity in salaries in the universities, as that will have its ripple effects by solving a problem and creating multiple hydra-headed additional problems of restiveness, resistance and deep rooted further struggles. NAAT therefore calls on Nimi Briggs committee to reconvene and conclude the re-negotiation process with our union and further adopt a more robust approach to the re-negotiation, as the committee had been slow and looked spineless in its ability to take decisions on behalf of the government.”

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