UTAG directs members to remain on strike
The National Executive Committee (NEC) of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG), has director their members at the local level to continue their industrial action until further notice.
The union has been on strike for more than three weeks over what they say is government’s failure to agree with them on their conditions of service.
In a press release copied to the Kumasi based OTEC 102.9 FM’s News desk, on Wednesday November 30,2022, the union disclosed that all attempts to resolve the impasse with government have proven futile.
The National Executive Committee of UTAG held a two-day meeting (from Monday, 28th to Tuesday, 29th November 2022) at the University of Energy and Natural
Resources (UENR), Sunyani, Bono Region, to among others, discuss critical issues of importance to University
Teachers in Ghana, including the state of the industrial action embarked upon on 17th October 2022 in response to
the unilateral variation of the Conditions of Service of workers of public universities to their disadvantage, without recourse to them”.
“The Meeting resolved as follows:
1. The industrial action must continue unabated. However, all essential services listed by the various local unions and branches of the Association, must continue to remain outside the purview of the strike action.
2. There have been several engagements with the Employer and the National Labour Commission (NLC) with the view to resolving the ongoing impasse. Nevertheless, these have yielded no meaningful results. We, therefore, call on the Employer and the NLC to be more proactive in expediting discussions to bring closure to the industrial action, in order not to destabilize the 2022/2023 academic calendar.
3. Government must be serious in its Base Pay negotiations with Organised Labour. Given the current inflation and economic miserisation of the ordinary Ghanaian worker, UTAG fully supports the proposal for Base Pay and relativity increase of 60 and 2 percent, respectively, and call on all Labour Unions in Ghana to remain resolute in supporting leadership in the fight for living wage and better Conditions of Service.
4. UTAG review of the 2023 Budget Statement points to a unilinear i imposition of more austerity measures that are likely to negatively impact the already impoverished public sector worker. We support the several calls for downsizing of Government as a show of sacrifice in an attempt to restore economic stability.
5. We are mindful of the impact of industrial harmony on productivity, and it is our utmost desire to maintain industrial peace in order to boost productivity and increase our work quality. We urge the Employer and other policy makers to also cherish same values of respect and commitment to agreements signed, that produces industrial harmony among labour unions”.
The relese signed by Professor Solomon Nuni National President of UTAG, added that, “we wish to remind Government about its agreements already reached with UTAG, to review the Single Spine Salary Structure, implement the 2019 Labour Market Survey Report and other key interventions to improve the Conditions of Service of our members beginning 2023. These agreements reached have been signed and are not subject to renegotiation in any form or shape. We call on the Employer to prepare for their implementation in January 2023 as already agreed”.
Source: Ghana/otecfmghana.com/Jacob Agyenim Boateng
