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B N W: Biafra Nigeria World News |
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WAEC workers threaten strike
By Rotimi Lawrence Oyekanmi
UNLESS the highest authorities of West African Examination Council (WAEC) take concrete steps to calm restive nerves, junior workers of the body may embark on a warning strike on Tuesday next week. The action may disrupt the on-going Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) as the Alternative to Physics paper is slated for October 5, the day of the proposed strike.
In the event of workers shunning their duty posts, it will be the first time since WAEC's creation in 1952 that a strike will hold in the exam body.
Sources close to the leadership of the council's Non Academic Staff Union, told The Guardian yesterday that the grouse of junior workers revolve around a management policy, which makes the possession of credit passes in English language and Mathematics the condition for their being promoted. The former Head of WAEC's national office, Mrs Margaret Shonekan, had in 1998 introduced the policy. Since then, it became mandatory for those in the executive cadre (junior staff) to possess a credit pass each in English Language and Mathematics (ordinary level) before they could be promoted.
But the junior employees, according to some officials, have since been agitating, owing to allegation that a number of those who belong to Assistant Registrar cadre (senior staff) do not possess this requirement, but are promoted every three years.
The official said: "There are two cadres at WAEC, the Assistant Registrar (AR) cadre, under which management members of staff are grouped and Executive Cadre, where all the other rank and file are grouped. For many years, members of the AR cadre have dominated the management of WAEC and had ensured that their own members get promoted every three years, while in our own cadre, a clerk can be in the same position for eight to 10 years.
"When we protested, Mrs. Shonekan (former head of the council), who came in 1998 introduced a policy that only our members who had credit passes in English language and Mathematics would be promoted. We said fine, but don't make the law retroactive. Exclude all those who were employed by WAEC before 1998. We also wanted the same rule applied to management staff; some of whom we knew did not possess credit in either English language or Mathematics, because during their time in the university, credit passes in both subjects were not needed for particular courses. But management refused. Some of us, who summoned the courage to write SSCE examination again, had our results seized, because if you are taking SSCE as a staff of WAEC, the rules are very strict.
"In 2000 when Mrs. Shonekan was retiring, she relaxed the policy and promoted our members en masse. We called it her parting gift. When Mr. Fagbemi (also former acting head of WAEC) came, he gave the excuse that he was in acting capacity and was constrained. But when the current HNO (Head of National Office), Mr. Tunde Oloyede, came in and we engaged him, he re-introduced the policy. We have implored management to have a re-think. We have had several meetings, all to no avail. So, we will embark on a warning strike on Tuesday and another warning strike the following Tuesday. But if our demands are still not met, we will embark on an indefinite strike."
Oloyede was unavailable for comments yesterday when The Guardian called at his office. But the council's spokesman, Mr. Yusuff Ari, dismissed the threat of the union, insisting that there would be no strike in the organisation. "I am not aware of any strike. I was at the two separate meetings between the management and the union, and when discussions were held, a committee was set up to look at the demands of the union. I don't think that committee has submitted its report yet and that is the stage in which we are. I am not aware that any strike is going to take place at all."
The Guardian, however, learnt that the union's leadership had started mobilising members for the showdown. Some workers said they were tired of being oppressed by the management. The employees said they wanted to shock the management with their resolve to embark on the industrial action. The union's officials were having a meeting at the time of filing this report yesterday.
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