The Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU) has called on the Federal Government to honour all existing agreements with university-based unions and desist from threatening workers with the “No Work, No Pay” policy.
The union described the Federal Government’s repeated threats to invoke the policy as unjust, discriminatory, and contrary to Nigeria’s labour laws.
NASU’s General Secretary, Prince Peters Adeyemi, made the call in a statement titled “Recurring Threats by Government Officials to Enforce the ‘No Work, No Pay’ Policy: A Call for Justice, Collective Bargaining, and Dignity of Labour.”
Adeyemi accused government officials of weaponising Section 42(1)(a) of the Trade Disputes Act, using it to intimidate workers rather than to promote industrial peace and dialogue.
According to him, strikes should not be seen as acts of rebellion but as lawful responses to the government’s failure to fulfil its obligations.
“Union leaders are not anarchists or agitators for chaos. Strikes are often the inevitable response to government’s dereliction of duty and failure to uphold the sanctity of labour laws,” he said.
The NASU leader argued that while the law permits the withholding of wages during strikes, other sections of the same Act provide for mediation and arbitration — mechanisms that the government frequently ignores.
Adeyemi cited Section 15 of the Labour Act, which mandates the prompt payment of wages, saying that withholding salaries violates the same law officials seek to enforce.
He further accused the government of double standards, noting: “The selective enforcement of ‘No Work, No Pay’ while ignoring ‘No Pay, No Work’ is hypocritical, unjust, and contrary to the principles of equity upon which industrial relations are built.”
Adeyemi also referenced international labour standards, stressing that the International Labour Organisation (ILO) recognises the right to strike under Conventions 87 and 98, both of which Nigeria has ratified. Punishing unions for lawful strikes, he said, contravenes those conventions.
While noting that Nigerian workers remain patriotic despite poor remuneration and difficult working conditions, the NASU scribe said it was “hypocrisy for the government to provoke strikes through broken promises and later punish the victims of its own failure.”
He urged the government to institutionalise collective bargaining in the public sector and ensure the full implementation of agreements reached with unions.
Adeyemi added that sustainable industrial harmony could only be achieved through mutual trust, dialogue, and adherence to both national and international labour standards.
