The Effects of Unionization on Wages and Working Conditions: A case Study of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU),Nigeria – A Review

Abstract

This paper examined the effects of unionization on wages and working conditions on members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). The paper reviewed the series of agitations that have led to strikes between 1988 and 2022 spanning the periods of the military and the present democratic dispensation. Secondary data were sourced from existing literature while analyses were made up to year 2022. Records show that the agitations rest mainly on government’s inability to honour agreements reached through dialogue, down ward review of wages that affected the lecturers more as well as poor service conditions that have made the system less profitable to work in. It is equally noted that while smaller countries increase budgetary allocations to education, Nigeria still struggles with a poor budgetary allocations. In any case, these agitations have helped in instituting the TETFUND which made infrastructural development in the universities possible while wages have not remained stagnant though with heightened inflation. The paper concludes that the struggles must intensify to let ASUU out of the abyss of their incessant agitations.