Unpaid for 8 months, College of Education lecturers begin strike

The Academic Staff of Oyo State College of Education, OYSCOED, Lanlate, have begun an indefinite strike over 10 month salary arrears.

This is contained in a communiqué signed by Olatunde Ogundiran, the Caretaker Chairman, Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union on Monday and made available to the News Agency of Nigeria.

Mr. Ogundiran, in the communiqué, said “lecturers were last paid in March 2016.”

He explained that the decision to commence the strike was taken at the expiration of an ultimatum given to the school management by its congress.

Mr. Ogundiran also stated that the lecturers had since March 2016 been undergoing very serious hardship.

“We have endured several months of unpaid salaries before the congress decided to go on indefinite strike.

“We have had series of negotiations with the state government representatives where we appealed to the government to pay the workers but there was no positive response,” he said.

He stated that the union had, before embarking on the strike, given notice to the school management and the state government but nothing was done.

He also stated that members of the union were indebted to food stuff sellers and could not afford to pay their children’s school fees when they resumed in January 2017.

“We want the public to know that we made every effort to avert this strike through dialogue with the government but are left with no other option,” Ogundiran stated.

(NAN)