By Biodun Olamosu
THE university sector has suffered gross underfunding and privatisation over the last two decades. The failure of governments to properly fund education and their failure to implement its agreements with the trade unions explain the repeated strikes in the sector and more widely across the public sector.
We need more strike actions, but more importantly, there is the need for more effective strike actions to push the government into action. To achieve this, there it the strategic need for the four trade unions under which university workers are organised – ASUU, NAAT, NASU and SSANU – to unite and fight together.
Total federal government spending in 2022 is planned to be nearly four times the level when Buhari came to power in 2015. The massive growth in the economy over the last two decades and the massive increases in government spending have neither benefited the poor nor the university sector.
The government has only promised to pay some of the earned allowances and only N30 billion for “revitalisation” of the university sector. At that rate, it would take nearly 30 years to implement the 2012 Needs Assessment Report. This government report estimated that N1,300 billion was needed to revitalise the country’s universities. Only N200 billion was ever paid in 2013, and this government has yet to make any contribution to this program.
The lessons from recent strikes are that it is not sufficient for workers just to stay at home during their strikes. They need to be actively seeking solidarity and support from other trade unions and the general public. Trade unions need to issue regular press releases and bulletins for their members. They also need to be organising pickets, protests and town hall meetings to galvanise public support for their strikes.
In the run up to the planned national strikes, local union branches should be encouraged to hold joint meetings with the other trade unions and the student union governments on each campus. These should be held at least every month during the strike. Joint press conferences and press releases should also be organised.
The campus trade unions should declare their support for the strike in the research institutes and encourage its branches in each university to partner with a local research institute. They should be lobbying for support from the NLC nationally.
It is essential for university workers, the wider trade union movement and the general public that the next university strike is totally successful. The national unions and their branches on each campus need to ensure that the strike is actively supported by all its members and the wider trade union movement. It is only when there are regular protests on all campuses supported by the wider trade union movement and the wider public as parents of students that the government will be frightened. Without this fear their nonchalant attitude to their agreements with trade unions will not change.
To achieve this, trade unions need to overcome their general insularity by actively and creatively building solidarity. This should include not only support during struggles, but also through joint education programs, solidarity visits, joint statements on national and international issues that pertain to working class interests and working class organising.
We need to convert Buhari’s promise to greatly increase spending on education into a reality. To achieve this, we need to frighten him and his government with working class strike action.
Comrade Olamosu is the National Secretary, Socialist Labour
