Joint Union Of  Academic Staff Of Plateau State Owned Tertiary Institutions To Begin An Indefinite Strike Tomorrow

The Joint Union of the Academic Staff of Plateau State Owned Tertiary Institutions said it will embark on strike action on Friday following the refusal of Governor Simon Lalong’s administration to adhere to the agreement entered into with the union. The union said it would shut down tertiary institutions in the state with effect from Friday, September 17, 2021, if the government refuses to revisit the agreement before the said date.

The State Chairman of the Joint Union, Comrade Lumye Innocent Simji, who briefed journalists in Jos on Wednesday, said the strike action would take effect except government implements the demands.

“We are going on strike this week Friday the 17th September 2021.

The reason is that we had an agreement with the government on some looming issues, but the government has failed in the three aspects of the agreement.

“First of all was the issue of our salary consolidation. Sometimes in October last year, we woke up and discovered that they just deconsolidated our salaries and this is a salary table that we had an agreement with the government signed and they have been paying us with it.

“So last year, they said they want to implement a minimum wage and they just deconsolidated our salaries into numerous parts and just manipulated our table without any cost to government and say that they implemented minimum wage for us while our salary still remains the same.”

Simji said the leadership of the union has written to the government and had several meetings that often end without any fruitful result until the coming on board of the new Head of Service where far-reaching agreement was entered.

“The coming of the new Head of Service, an agreement was reached and signed on three key issues. The Consolidation of our salary, third-party deduction, and remittances, which has to do with our Cooperative deduction, and union dues and the State Health Contributory scheme deduction by the agency.”