The union said the government owes its members arrears of 13 months of membership dues.
ASUSS accused the state wing of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) of blackmailing it before Governor Ayo Fayose, which made his administration not to recognise the union.
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The Academic Staff Union of Secondary Schools (ASUSS) in Ekiti State has decried its exclusion from the World Teachers’ Day celebration today.
State ASUSS Chairman Olusola Adigun, in a statement yesterday, said the “union was worried that the governor had allowed the NUT to influence him to openly hate us as we celebrate our day”.
Adigun affirmed that ASUSS has been legalised to unionise secondary school teachers through the approval of the Ministry of Labour and Productivity.
The state NUT Chairman, Kayode Akosile, at a briefing last Wednesday, described ASUSS “as an illegal body”.
He accused “ex-governor Kayode Fayemi of breaching the law to recognise it ”.
Akosile said: “Before any union can operate, it has to be registered by the Registrar of Trade Unions in Abuja.
Former Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola did not recognise ASUSS. He told members that as a senior lawyer that he could not breach the law. So, ASUSS to us, is an illegal body.”
But Adigun countered: “It is highly disappointing to see our governor`s preference for NUT, particularly in the preparation for the Teachers’ Day celebration.
“Our members have complained bitterly of their exclusion from the last education summit, even though our members are the ones to implement the outcome in secondary schools.
“In view of the wicked roles which the NUT has been playing to make sure that we are not recognised in the Fayose administration, we want to state that Ekiti NUT is the biblical Cain, who killed his brother Abel, ASUSS .
“The NUT has been inciting the people against us, telling them that we are not legally constituted and that we don’t have the legal rights to membership dues.
“We wish to point it out that ASUSS has won more than 50 court judgments against the NUT and the most recent one, at the National industrial Court of Nigeria, Enugu, last December 2.
“In that judgment, Justice A. Ibrahim held that ‘the rights of the claimant (NUT) to collect checkup dues; or subscription; is limited to its members; it is only the claimant’s members who are obliged to pay membership dues or subscription dues’.
“The court pointed out that ‘there is nothing averred to show that secondary school teachers are members of the claimant and therefore their contributions,whether as check off dues or subscriptions, belong to the claimant and cannot be taken away from it (ASUSS)’.
“The judge, therefore, submitted that ‘on the whole the preliminary objection of the first defendant succeeds as I uphold the submission that the claimant lack locus standi to bring this action. I further uphold the interlocutory order of the court on the funds kept in an account on the orders of the court made on July 27, 2012. The suit is accordingly hereby struck out’.
“Equally, the Ekiti State Ministry of Justice has given two legal advice in 2011 and 2012 that ASUSS has the right to exist and to collect dues from its members, and which the government has obeyed until recently.
“Despite our financial constraint, we went ahead to celebrate our annual award day amidst funfair in commemoration of the teachers day, where 40 ASUSS teacher-retirees were feted with gifts, 16 students who emerged the best in the ASUSS annual essays in each local government were given both cash and books. e ASUSS also paid for the WASSCE fees of the overall best pupil in the state”.
