Unam staff refused to accept a last-minute "guaranteed" salary increase of eight per cent by management and are due to go on strike today.

Unam Vice Chancellor Peter Katjavivi said they would partially meet a 16,5 per cent across-the-board agreement with the employees through "a guaranteed eight per cent increase" by the beginning of April.

But "the employees said the offer was not good enough", said workers' spokesperson, Ben Doc Naobeb.

Representatives of the Namibia Public Workers' Union (Napwu) and Namibia National Teachers' Union (Nantu) met Katjavivi at noon yesterday.

The Vice Chancellor wrote back to them in the afternoon, promising a guaranteed eight per cent wage hike.

Naobeb, however, said the strike could still be averted if management bettered its offer before today's strike starts.

Said Unam spokesperson, Edwin Tjiramba: "The pending strike, coming as it does in the middle of our registration process, will have an adverse effect on our operations."

Earlier Unam offered to increase the basic salaries of all employees by 16,5 per cent across-the-board in order to decrease the salary backlog and to bring the salaries in line with market trends.

But it said it could not grant the increase until its submission for a subsidy from Government's main budget had been approved Naobeb said Unam had gone "backwards" with its offer since it failed to honour its earlier promise of 16,5 per cent.

The unions claimed that Unam was not interested in bettering the working conditions of its employees.

Tjiramba rejected the claims.

He said there was no way Unam would sit back when faced with staff turnover of 18 per cent a year.

For that reason, Tjiramba said, Unam management implemented internal cost-cutting measures, organised more development programmes for employees and the institution, improved cost-recovery measures and decided to complement the traditional budget with fundraising activities.

In a statement, he said management recognised that it was the right of every employee to take part in industrial action and appealed that the rights of those who did not want to strike be respected and "that there be no harm or threats to either person or property for the duration of the industrial action. "

He said the "no-work, no-pay" rule would apply during the strike.

Unam's Directorate of Human Resources was instructed to monitor the attendance of all staff as well as the protection of employees who did not join the work stoppage.

Some 94,4 per cent of Unam staff who voted in a ballot on Thursday backed strike action.

The unions said those who voted against the strike would not be barred or prevented from entering campus premises.

Apart from the deadlock on the salaries, Unam said it had agreed to implement a flat rate amount to the staff members not benefiting from the motor scheme system and to implement a new housing subsidy formula to bring staff on par with the Government scheme and other comparable institutions.

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