The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (‎SSANU), Lagos State Universities (LASU) Chapter on Tuesday urged the institution’s authorities to refrain from de-harmonising salaries of teachers in its Staff Primary school.

The Chairman, SSANU-LASU, Mr Saheed Oseni, said this in an interview with the News ‎Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.

‎Oseni said plans to de-harmonise the salaries of the teachers should be shelved until the matter was resolved between SSANU, National Executive Council (NEC) and the Federal Government.

He said the matter was already at the National Industrial Court (NIC) and until a decision was reached, no university is ‎expected to implement such policy.

‎Oseni said ‎the union had written the state government and the university authority to wait for the decision of the NIC on the matter at the national level before taking any action.‎

“‎The management should maintain status quo ‎and abide by subsisting agreement between the Federal Government and SSANU-NEC until the NIC decides on the matter.

‎”Besides, the staff ‎primary school teachers are also employees of the university Governing Council, so their salaries should not be tampered with.”

Meanwhile, the University official Bulletin obtained by NAN ‎stated that the university governing ‎council had directed the management to liaise with other universities that had carried out the de-harmonisation on the modalities it employed.

The bulletin said the outcome of the investigation when gathered should be presented to the council for consideration.

‎NAN reports that the management of LASU had received a directive from the state government on March 4 to de-harmonise the salary of staffs of its Staff Primary School.

The management informed the unions about the directive it received from the state government and the union had also stated its position to resist such plan.‎

The de-harmonisation policy when implemented would reduce salaries of university ‎staff primary school teachers from about N120, 000 to N60, 000.

The directive negated the principle of the agreement between the Federal Government and the union's national body reached in November 2009.

According to Chapter 2, Section X (i) of the agreement, Universities shall bear the full capital and recurrent costs of the university staff primary school.

SSANU National had embarked on strike in December 2015, following a similar directive by the Federal Government for implementation of the policy by all universities.‎

NAN reports that the matter being referred to the National Industrial Court (NIC) awaits adjudication and interpretation.‎ (NAN)

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