ASUP ordered to picket Federal Poly Offa

The Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics, ASUP, Federal Polytechnic Offa chapter, has been given full approval to picket the institution if the management proceeds with plans to stop the deduction of union check-off dues from May salaries of members.

The national headquarters of the union approved the action, according to a statement signed by the national chairman of ASUP, Shammah Kpanja.

Chairman of ASUP, Offa Federal Polytechnic, Dr Idowu Atilola, in a statement on Friday, said: “This will be our union’s take-off point in the struggle,” as the chapter has been authorised to counter this act of terror against our union.

“Regrettably, the Rector of the institution, Dr Kamoru Kadir, was a former ASUP chairman and presidential aspirant in ASUP. He shall be served with the full dose of his prescriptions when he held sway as ASUP chairman in the Federal Polytechnic, Offa.”

Dr Atilola vowed that ASUP will not abdicate its historic responsibility of ensuring good governance in the polytechnic system, adding: “We will not be intimidated out of this responsibility by the gang-up of a few, and therefore we will be confronting this threat with an equivalent reaction across campuses and nationally.”

The union alleged that the plot to destabilise ASUP goes beyond the poorly thought-out position of the committee of Federal Polytechnic Rectors regarding union check-off dues deductions.

“We have received credible information of plans by the committee and some individual rectors to fund, sponsor, and facilitate unregistered and non-existent bodies as splinter groups of ASUP.

“We are fully briefed on the few rectors behind this plot, and we are certain that it will fail, as always.

“For clarity purposes, the Labour Act is unambiguous in relevant sections, including but not limited to the references made by the Rectors’ committee. Section 5 of the Act deals with deductions in its different forms.

“Section 5(3a, b) is very clear on the responsibility of an employer to make deductions and remittances in favour of a registered Trade Union from the wages of eligible members of such a Trade Union.

“We are therefore taken aback by the insistence of a body like the Rectors Committee, which is indeed an equivalent body to the Vice-Chancellors in the university system and provosts from the colleges of education, to reason in this manner, if these other two bodies can never contemplate doing so,” said the ASUP national chairman.

The union, therefore, asked the Rectors Committee of Federal Polytechnics to re-evaluate their continued existence and justification for the deployment of scarce resources in the Federal polytechnics to service the same.