The Ogun State chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Secondary Schools on Saturday said its members would not be part of the indefinite strike action declared in the state's primary and secondary schools by the Nigeria Union of Teachers.
ASUSS described the strike, declared by the NUT over the alleged non-payment of teachers' peculiar allowance, as illegal.
The union's Central Working Committee has therefore directed all its members in secondary schools across the 20 local government areas of the state to ignore the NUT's call for an indefinite strike.
ASUSS State President, Dr. Tunde Folarin, at a news conference held at the union's secretariat in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, described the call on secondary school teachers to join the strike as an aberration.
Folarin stressed that most of the agitations of the NUT mainly concerned primary school teachers in the state.
The ASUSS state president stressed that the union had for long handed off the affairs of the primary school teachers to allow the NUT to manage, warning that the union would resist any attempt by the NUT members to picket any secondary school or disturb their normal activities.
Folarin said, "First, I want to say that ASUSS is not a member of NUT and it's an aberration for a particular union to be calling on people who are not its members to a strike of this nature. So, I am using this medium to inform all our members in all the secondary schools in Ogun State that there is work on Monday.
"The CWC at the national level met on Monday 27th to review the situation and it is our resolve that no member of ASUSS should go on strike. It is an aberration, it is an illegality for any of them to come and force any secondary school teacher to join the strike that we know that it is not necessary as at now. In fact, it will heighten the tension of the education sector in Ogun State."
The ASUSS president said negotiations were already going on regarding the payment of the 27.5 per cent peculiar allowance which the NUT had said was its reason for declaring the strike.
He said, "I am assuring our members that with the kind of negotiation we had with the government, we are having that 27.5 percent to be added to our salary because it is our right, it is a national right but I am saying that the way NUT is going about all these things shows that they didn't even understand how labour should operate in different states."
The Punch
This strike don't happen for no reason, I feel some things have to be corrected for things to go smoothly. The govt should look into it.