The University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) has agreed to call off its industrial action.
A statement from UTAG announcing this decision said this was after carefully assessing the referenda results and interim agreements reached with all stakeholders.
The decision, it explained, followed an emergency meeting held on Tuesday, 8 March 2022, to consider the outcome of the referenda on the National Executive Committee’s decision to temporarily suspend the industrial action, which commenced on 10 January 2022.
Although 12 out of the 15 UTAG branches voted to reject the earlier directive to suspend the strike, the association has assured its members that their Employer will address all concerns raised.
“The NEC of UTAG promises to monitor and police the full implementation of all agreements with the Employer and to work with clear timelines and roadmaps to ensure that all promises and agreements are respected.
“There would no longer be reactionary measures but proactive interventions that would not wait till matters get out of hand before resorting to industrial actions,” parts of the statement read.
Reason for the strike
Teachers have embarked on countless strikes over the same issue in recent years.
UTAG announced industrial action over conditions of service on Monday, 10 January 2022, compelling a meeting between parties involved.
The decision was made by the National Executive Committee (NEC) of UTAG following two emergency meetings.
UTAG explained that after implementing the Interim Market Premium (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.