The Management of the University of the South Pacific maintains the strike action taken by members of the USP Union is illegal and has called on the workers to go back to work.

In a mass circulated e-mail to all staff and students, four minutes to the hour before they went on strike, the Vice Chancellor, Professor Rajesh Chandra informed them that the strike was illegal.

However General Secretary Litiana Waqalevu maintains the Ministry of Labour has turned down the request by USP to stop the strike action, therefore she said the strike is legal.

The Vice-Chancellor maintains that the graduation will go ahead tomorrow despite the strike action.

However Waqalevu said this will be impossible as majority of those on strike now are part of the organising committee which will oversee the smooth running of the ceremony.

A total of 380 members are on strike at the main Laucala Campus with another 37 members on standby in Labasa and Lautoka. Waqalevu said if nothing is done by mid-day then they will give the word for the other members to join the strike.

She said they are going on strike because the USP management has not addressed their grievances and this involves the fact that management has dissolved the Media Centre on August 1st this year with no notice in writing given to union members on their future at the USP while there has been no advertising of vacant positions available at the University.