The Academic Staff Union of Secondary Schools (ASUSS), Kwara State branch, has dragged the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) to the National Industrial Court sitting in Akure, Ondo State, over alleged illegal deduction from its members.
The chairman of the the group, Aduagba Mansur, and three others on Monday joined the State Teaching Service Commission, the Commissioner for finance, the Head of Service (HoS), Attorney-General and the NUT, in the suit numbered NICN/IL/13/202.
The claimants are seeking, among other reliefs against the defendants jointly and severally: “A declaration that by the combined effect of the provisions of Section 10 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999(as altered), and Section 12(4) of the Trade Union Act, 2004, the claimants are entitled to refrain from not to join and or denounce membership of the 5th defendant.
“A declaration that the deductions of check-off dies from the salaries of the claimants by the 1st to 3rd defendants and remitting same to the 5th defendant in the absence of written instructions or authorization from the claimants and in view of the written denouncements of membership of the 5th defendant by the claimants, is contrary to the provisions of Section 40 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and of the Trade Union Act and Section 5(4) of the Labour Act and therefore unconstitutional, unlawful, null and void.”
The chairman of ASUSS told newsmen that his group had since 2020 communicated interest to discontinue its membership with the NUT to all the concerned stakeholders.
“We have since 2020 seized to be members of the NUT,” he stated, adding: “It is disheartening to realise that the NUT never stopped deducting our check-off dues after we have since pulled out of the union.”
ASUSS accused the state’s Attorney-General of conniving with the NUT to continue deducting the check-off dues right from source, “without our due authorisation”.
According to Aduagba, the group sought legal action to save the interest of over 9,000 members.
“We did not subscribe to the check-off dues being unlawfully deducted from our respective salaries into the coffers of the 5th defendant (NUT) and we, the claimants, are entitled to refund of same,” he said.
Subsequently, ASUSS prayed the Industrial Court to stop the NUT from deducting the check-off dues.
It also sought the court’s order to mandate the defendants to render accounts of all the unauthorized deductions and refund respective claimants and those represented.
As part of the condition to ensure peace in the industry, ASUSS also sought a perpetual injunction restraining the defendants from further deducting check-off dues from the salaries of the claimants without written instructions or authorisation from the claimants.
The state chairman of the state Teaching Service Commission TESCOM, Abubakar Bello Taoheed, said he would not respond to the development.
“The lawyers are handling it, I sincerely don’t have anything to say about it.”
In the same vein, the state chairman of the NUT, Yusuf Agboola, could not be reached as of the time of this report.
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