Following a threat by workers unions at the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, LAUTECH, Ogbomoso, to embark on an industrial action over unpaid salaries by the management of the insitution, the Oyo State House of Assembly has summoned the Vice-Chancellor of the institution, Prof. Adeniyi Gbadegesin and the Oyo State education commissioner, Prof. Adeniyi Olowofela.
The invitation, according to the Assembly, became necessary in order to resolve the lingering crisis that has bedevilled the institution in the last couple of years due to non-payment of workers’ salaries.
Moving a motion on the “urgent need to avert another indefinite industrial action at LAUTECH, Hon. Olawumi Oladeji, who represents Ogbomoso North argued that “prior to the suspension of the last strike action by the unions in the university, an MOU was signed with the management on behalf of the governing council but now the content and the spirit of the agreement have been breached.
According to the female lawmaker, “Accumulation of arrears of unpaid salaries still continued unsettled, staff of the university now endure hardship and various financial embarrassments due to non-payment of salaries like seven and a half months months of arrears.”
She declared that the staff unions in the university are planning to embark on an indefinite strike action “if urgent intervention is not taken by the two owner states to rescue the situation. She argued further that students who suffer for it, as “they may engage themselves in aimless wandering and criminal activities because, like they say, an idle hand is the devil’s workshop”
