The University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) has agreed to call off its strike action after a meeting with Parliament’s Education Committee on Thursday, 17 February 2022.
This was revealed by the Ranking Member of the Education Committee, Peter Nortsu-Kotoe, who said UTAG would announce their decision after consultation with its members.
The committee had earlier met with the leadership of UTAG, the Education Minister, and the Labour Minister to bring finality to the impasse between UTAG and the government, which lasted for over five weeks.
According to the Akatsi North MP, upon an appeal by the committee, the lecturers have resolved to call off the strike on the condition that government settles all outstanding issues.
“They have agreed to call off the strike on the condition that government is ready to sit down with them immediately for them to resolve outstanding matters.
“The minister gave us the assurance that they are going to be committed. Once the committee has directed, there is no way he (minister) as a leader of the government delegation will fail to meet with them,” he assured.
The committee is hopeful that the lecturers will return to the lecture halls by Monday, 21 February.
This follows an interlocutory injunction by the Labour Division of the Accra High Court recently against the industrial action by UTAG, after an appeal by the National Labour Commission.
The NLC dragged UTAG to court after attempts to have UTAG call off its strike failed.
The court ordered both parties to adopt an out-of-court settlement on two occasions, but the engagements ended inconclusively.
It was anticipated that UTAG would immediately return to the classroom with the last order, but that did not happen.
The meeting with the Education Committee of Parliament seemed to be the last attempt to resolve the impasse.
Background
UTAG announced industrial action over conditions of service on Monday, 10 January 2022, compelling a meeting between parties involved.
After considerations on Thursday, 13 January, the NLC directed UTAG to call off its industrial action and resume work because they did not follow due process to channel their grievances.
The NLC stated that the reason UTAG embarked on the strike had been settled, thus submission of the report on the Labour Market Survey.
NLC added that UTAG might have other issues, “but those had not yet been formally presented to the employer for redress”.
But a statement on 19 January 2022 by UTAG said: “The members have unanimously resolved to continue with the withdrawal of teaching and related services until further notice”.
Again, on Tuesday, 8 February, a meeting between the Ministry of Education and UTAG and other stakeholders ended inconclusively and is expected to continue on Thursday.
The meeting became necessary after the High Court ordered the National Labour Commission and UTAG to resort to an out-of-court settlement following a suit filed by the NLC.
Reason for the strike
Teachers have embarked on countless strikes over the same issue in recent years.
The latest decision was made by the National Executive Committee (NEC) of UTAG following two emergency meetings.
UTAG explained that after implementing the IMP in 2013, a determination is yet to be made, resulting in the erosion of the university teacher’s salary.
“There was the hope that by completing and implementing the Labour Market Survey (LMS) Report of 2019, a review of the IMP would have put the University Teacher on relatively good salary stead. Regrettably, the recommendations of the 2019 LMS Report without any accompanying technical report on the implementable MP is meaningless to UTAG as it does not address the pertinent issues of improved CoS,” UTAG lamented.
It added that there was an LMS in 2014 whose report did not see the light of day, and one wonders if the 2019 LMS Report would ever be implemented since it is already two years old.
“In addition, recommendation (iii) from the 2019 LMS Report states that, ‘Public Services Commission should liaise with educational institutions to prioritise the offering of courses in areas of demand to increase the employment prospects of their graduates and increase the pool of applicants for high vacancies’”.
“How can such a national agenda be attained if the CoS of the University Teacher keeps worsening year on year, leading to an ever-increasing attrition rate on our campuses? UTAG members see the timing of the release of the report as one of the usual delay tactics that the Employer has employed over the years, which is unacceptable”.
“We must also point out that, generally, our members have decried the pittance agreed to be paid as annual research allowance and would want the government to reconsider the payment of a more realistic research allowance as this is critical to our research output, promotion, and ultimately national development,” it added.