The Nigerian government has concluded the renegotiation of the 2009 agreement with the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU). NASU President, Peters Adeyemi, briefly confirmed the development to PREMIUM TIMES on Monday.
Mr Adeyemi stated that the union will release a statement later.
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The non-academic staff unions have long lamented the slow pace of the renegotiation process that began in October. Last month, the unions downed tools to protest the pace of negotiations.
A similar agreement was renegotiated with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in December, also marking the end of a 16-year process.
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The agreements, although signed separately with the unions, primarily set out the welfare and conditions of service for members.
The unions had also rejected the 30 per cent increment proposed by the government representatives, led by the Pro-Chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, Yayale Ahmed.
SSANU and NASU insisted on a 40 per cent increment, just as was done for their academic counterparts in ASUU.
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2009 agreement
In 2009, the Nigerian government signed an agreement with several workers’ unions in Nigerian universities, including ASUU, SSANU and NASU. The agreements contain the workers’ pay and conditions of service. It was supposed to be renegotiated every three years, but has stalled for many years, resulting in multiple industrial actions in the public universities.
In December, the government concluded the renegotiation with ASUU after the sixth renegotiation committee, set up in October, completed the harmonisation of the negotiations.
However, the non-academic staff unions have always accused the government of treating them less favourably than their academic counterparts during negotiations.
For instance, the SSANU and NASU agreement was only concluded six months after that of ASUU, even though it was handled by the same committee, led by Mr Ahmed.
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