The Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education (AOCOED) Ijanikin Chapter of Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union (COEASU) has urged the Lagos State Government and the school to be committed to meeting the union’s demands.
The Union Chairman, Mr Ige Ajayi, made this plea during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Monday.
NAN reports that COEASU started the indefinite strike on Aug. 30 over some demands which include immediate commencement of payment of 53.3 per cent allowances and arrears and resuscitation of internally generated revenue programme.
Others are payment of all outstanding honoraria, new promotion criteria, establishment of college and school based bookshop, release of N22.8million TETFUND money to beneficiaries.
NAN reports that activities at the college seemed normal as students and some staff were seen within the premises.
Ajayi said that the union was not interested in promises and assurances again, but “the commitment to providing all our demands.”
“We keep writing and having meetings with the management and governor of the council, but we felt they are not genuine in providing permanent solutions to our demands.
“We are on total and indefinite strike and we are experiencing 100 per cent compliance from our members.
“This strike has been in process for a very long time based on our demands from the government and management of the college,” he said.
Ajayi said that the staff had a backlog of unpaid honoraria and some allowances such as transport, hazard and TETFUND money.
“The allowances have not been paid since 2011 and we agreed with the management on the payment of 17 per cent of the allowances.
“AOCOED happened to be the only tertiary institutions in Lagos State that has not started the payment since 2011 when government directed all managements to pay their staff, including unions
“It is only AOCOED management that has not yielded to this directive, we keep writing and having meetings with the management, but no response yet.
“We have explored all possible avenues to avert this ongoing strike,” he said.
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Ajayi said that the college was 61 years old, but had no bookshop “which means all our published books are kept in our cupboards.”
“For the college to pay these allowances, we must continue to ensure that our internally generated revenue programmes become robust, but our management is not interested in our ideas.
“This strike is an instruction from our executives and directive mandate given to the executive by the entire congress which means we can not call off the strike until our demands are met.
” We have received messages from the Lagos State Government to dialogue,”he said.
The Registrar of the College, Mr Muhideen Oladamola, however, said that the union’s agitations were on transport and hazard allowances.
Oladamola said that management, through the council with the resources available, had started implementing the allowances from August.
“We are also waiting for financial backing from the Lagos State Government.
“Luckily, the meeting we had with the government at the top level on Aug.30 told the union to call off their strike.
“I am sure COEASU will have their congress tomorrow to request their members to go back to work,” he said.(NAN)
