The Federal Government has reaffirmed its commitment to renegotiating the terms and conditions of employment for all employees represented by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) across the country.
On Monday, April 11, in Abuja, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, received members of the government side of the re-negotiation committee for the 2009 Federal Government/University Based Unions Agreement, led by its Chairman, Prof. Nimi Briggs.
Ngige made the remarks in a statement signed by Patience Onuobia, the ministry’s Acting Head of Press and Public Relations.
The minister was speaking in the midst of the ASUU strike, which is still going on.
He said that as conciliator, he has been working hard to ensure that everything in the 2020 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) reached by the government and the union is implemented, including the renegotiated positions.
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He remembered that the renegotiation began in 2017 with the inauguration of the Federal Government. COVID-19 struck in 2020, with a committee led by Wale Babalakin SAN, who was later replaced by Prof. Munzali Jibril.
According to the minister, in the December 2020 agreement, he gave the government a deadline to return to the university unions, which are their employees, to sort things out.
“I started pushing to see that things were done. What the Munzali committee came up with is a proposal. Both Munzali and ASUU did not sign. At our last meeting in February before ASUU proceeded on strike, we said everyone should go back to his principal.
”I asked Education several times what they had done with the document. We later got information on areas of disagreement. There is nothing wrong with that. It is bound to happen. I told ASUU to put up a committee, they said Munzali committee had expired.
“As a conciliator, I have to make use of the labour instruments at my disposal. The bosses in the Federal Ministry of Education do not feel the strike. There are things that are above me. I am not Minister of Education.
”I cannot go to the Education Minister and dictate to him how to run his place. But I told ASUU that you should be bombarding them at the Federal Ministry of Education for this to be moved forward. There are many ways to do so,” he said.
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