President of the UCC branch of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG), Dr. Samuel Bert Boadi-Kusi says an industrial strike is not the best option to resolve matters but it becomes necessary if parties concerned in resolving the issues do not do the needful.
According to him, UTAG has made several efforts to draw the attention of government to attend to their concerns tabled before it but to no avail.
Speaking to ATL FM NEWS on the press statement issued on Wednesday, 28th September 2022 by UTAG, GAUA, SSA-UoG, and TEWU concerning their working conditions being overly varied at their expense, with the government intending to apply the same conditions without their knowledge selectively, he said government’s failure to pay such allowances severally affect the discharge of their duties.
Background
The University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG), together with other three (3) labour unions in the various public universities in Ghana, are threatening to go on strike should government fail to pay vehicle and off-campus allowances to improve their condition of service.
The other unions are the Ghana Association of University Administrators (GAUA), Tertiary Education Workers Union of Ghana (TEWU-GH), and Senior Staff Association of Universities of Ghana (SSA-UoG).
In a joint press release by the Unions, they indicated that they had taken notice of a letter from the Ministry of Finance on the revision of fuel allowance payable to eligible staff in public and technical universities dated August 5, 2022, and signed by the Deputy Minister of Finance, Abena Osei-Asare.
They also made mention of another letter dated March 16, 2022, and signed by Ms. Osei-Asare and addressed to the Director General of the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) on Allowances Payable on the Payroll of Public Universities.
Based on these, they did not receive any response after they sought ‘clarification on the basis for the unilateral variation in the conditions of service of university teachers and by extension all workers of public universities without the laid down procedures for negotiations”.
Government must stick to its agreement
However, Dr. Bert Boadi-Kusi said UTAG and government had made an agreement and hence government must endeavor to stick to it.
He said, “we think that it is unfair because we went to negotiate for our members not for a section of our members and throughout our negotiations, we were clear that we very much interested in the allowance that affects everybody because these are typical conditions of service.”
“Dialogues have not worked and we don’t think strikes are solutions to the challenges we face in our public universities. We need dialogues to settle these matters. But where one party wants to just sit somewhere and issue a letter, then vary the things we have agreed then we think that is unfair and we will only have to resolve to strike,” he emphasized.
He further indicated that the Unions have signed these agreements already and it is for the employer being the government to implement it
“If you think you have implementation challenges you must call us to the table,” he continued.
Dr. Bert Boadi-Kusi, therefore, called on government to stick to the agreed allowances for all members as soon as possible to prevent them from withdrawing their services.
Source: ATLFMNEWS
