No pay for striking lecturers, pry school teachers - Suswam

BENUE State governor, Mr Gabriel Suswam, has vowed to carry out the policy of ‘no work no pay rule’ to striking lecturers of the Benue State University (BSU) and primary school teachers in the state, as long as they stay out of work. The state university lecturers had joined the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike, which has entered its four months, while primary school teachers, last week, resumed the suspended strike over non-implementation of the new minimum wage in the state. The governor, in a chat with journalists on Sunday, expressed dissatisfaction with the striking workers in the state, insisting that the lecturers and teachers had no business to embark on strike, since his administration had been working to fulfill its obligation to them. “BSU lecturers have no issue. We are already enforcing the ‘no work, no pay’ policy and I’m not joking about it. There will be no salary for striking university lecturers, while teachers will also not be paid for the period they are on strike,” he said. Only two weeks ago, it will be recalled that primary school pupils embarked on solidarity protest for their teachers. The teachers had argued that the minimum wage, which the state government started paying them from August, was slightly lower than what other civil servants in the state enjoyed. But the governor debunked the claim, saying no teacher in the state earned less than N25,000 monthly, despite the lean resources accruing to the state account from the Federal Government. He maintained that the N18,000 minimum wage approved by the Federal Government was a national threshold, adding that his administration had surpassed the national limit