At last LASPOTECH workers, HOS C’ttee move to resolve 2-month-old strike

Finally, the striking Non-Academic Staff Unions of the Lagos State Polytechnic (LASPOTECH), Ikorodu and the Lagos State Head of Service (HOS) Committee has agreed to return to a table discussion which may bring an end to the lingering crisis in the institution.

According to the Chairman, Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Polytechnics (SSANIP), Mr Abiodun Awoyemi, although the reason for the Tuesday meeting was yet to be disclosed, he expressed the unions’ readiness to honour the invitation sent to them by the HOS .

“An invite was sent to the unions by the HOS to meet with the committee tomorrow but we do not know why we were invited.

“Although the unions had met with the HOS committee earlier and was directed to submit documents to serve as evidence to the allegations levied against the management; which we did.

“We are not also aware if the management would be there,’’ he said.

The chairman said that the National body of SSANIP at its 59th National Executive Committee (NEC) and General Executive Committee (GEC) quarterly meeting which ended on Friday addressed the lingering issue still affecting LASPOTECH in a communique.

“The union in its communique urged that the polytechnic’s management to revert the de-migration of its workers’ salary structure to status quo.

“It also requested that the Lagos State Government urgently intervene to resolve the crisis that has bedevilled the institution in the last three months,’’ Awoyemi said.

Members of NASUP and SSANIP, LASPOTECH Chapter had since Jan. 21 embarked on continuous protests and indefinite strike to demand for the reversal of an alleged de-migration of their salary structure by the institution’s management.

The unions had on daily basis been marching round the campus in their hundreds chanting solidarity songs and carrying placards with inscriptions as: No To De-Migration; No To Strangulation of Unions.

Major offices in the institution were also shut.

They unions said the strike was to demand a reversal of the de-migration of the Polytechnic’s workers’ salary structure from the CONTISS 15 Migration by the Polytechnic’s Rector against the Deputy Governor’s pronouncement and Court’s directive.

The Polytechnic’s management, however, said it did not de-migrate its staff as claimed but was only correcting a realignment of the salary structure as directed by the state government.

The management said the need for the alignment arose because the management of the Polytechnic was forced by the unions to implement the migration in 2016,

while the document presented for implementation as later discovered, did not emanate from National Board for Technical Education (NBTE).