ASUU STRIKE: ERC URGES NUT, NUEE, NUPENG TO COMMENCE SOLIDARITY STRIKE

The Education Rights Campaign (ERC) fully
welcomes the decision of three trade
unions – the Nigerian Union of Teachers
(NUT), the National Union of Petroleum and
Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and the
National Union of Electricity Employees
(NUEE) – to embark on solidarity strike
actions to compel the Federal Government
to honour agreements signed with the
Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
The ERC urges the three unions to take this
beyond the realm of threats and
immediately name a day on which the
solidarity strike would take place and begin
active mobilisation of their rank and file
members as well as students who are
frustrated at home and concerned
Nigerians to come out en-masse for mass
protests and demonstrations on this day.
We commend the three unions for taking
this decision which we believe is in the best
interest of the education sector and the
Nation at large.
We agree that the ASUU strike has gone on
for far too long and the plethora of strikes
in the education sector are just too many.
On Tuesday 8 October, the ASUU strike
became 100 days old. Slowly the entire
public education sector is grinding to a halt.
For instance, the public polytechnics are
equally closed and it will not be too long
before the Colleges of Education Academic
Staff Union (COEASU) follow suit. The
Colleges of Education lecturers had recently
held a 7-day warning strike. Indeed, the
Academic Staff of Union of Polytechnics
(ASUP) had to resume the strike, they had
suspended in July after three months, due
to the insensitivity and insincerity of
government to their demands and terms of
the suspension of the last strike.
A wave of one-day solidarity strikes by the
labour movement accompanied by mass
protests and demonstrations can alter this
situation and compel the Federal
Government to meet the demands of ASUU,
ASUP, COEASU and other unions on
industrial actions so that the schools can
resume. This is why we commend the three
unions for taking this decision which we
believe is in the best interest of the
education sector and the Nation at large.
The three unions come from key sectors of
the Nation’s economy. As such their
decision to embark on solidarity strike if
given full and practical effect could help pile
pressure on the recalcitrant anti-poor
Federal Government to meet demands of
striking education unions so that public
Universities and Polytechnics can be
reopened for academic activities to resume.
This would also serve as an example for
other unions and the entire labour
movement to follow.