We are not on strike-TEWU

04-19-08
Page 23

THE Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU) says it has not embarked on any industrial action as reported by a section of the media.
“We have not gone on strike, since there is no need for that now,” the General Secretary of TEWU, Mr Dan Ayim Antwi, told the Daily Graphic yesterday.
He said a resolution adopted by TEWU and the Federation of University Senior Staff Associations of Ghana (FUSSAG) on April 14, 2008, called on the government to review upward, the mandate given to the Vice Chancellors of Ghana (VCG) to conclude negotiations with the two bodies on salaries and allowances.
However, he said, the resolution indicated that if by the close of work on Monday, April 21, 2008, the government had not made it possible for the VCG, TEWU and the FUSSAG to “conclude negotiations on salaries and allowances, the government should accept responsibility for whatever happens”.
“We don’t want to create any situation that will be unbearable in the universities. That is why we want the authorities to act with dispatch,” he said.
TEWU members in the universities are in administration, transport services, teaching assistants and the non-academic staff.
Mr Antwi noted that TEWU submitted proposals early in September 2007 before its collective agreement expired on December 31, 2007, adding that in November, the parties met but could not conclude negotiations.
“In January, we adopted a resolution and gave a deadline of two weeks, failure of which we would advise ourselves,” he said, adding that in the course of the period, the National Labour Commission (NLC) mandated the two sides, TEWU-FUSSAG on one hand and the VCG on the other hand, to resume negotiations.
The negotiations, he said, resumed on February 27, 2008, but could not conclude negotiations after TEWU-FUSSAG rejected an offer of 10 per cent from the VCG.
Mr Antwi explained that the various unions in the public sector had agreed that they would not accept any offer less than 20 per cent this year.
TEWU and FUSSAG, he said, therefore, asked the VCG to go for an improved mandate and reconvene on March 12, 2008, and indicated that “as of now, they have not called us”.
Last Monday, he said, the executives of the local unions in the universities met the leadership of TEWU and FUSSAG on the matter, and that it was after that meeting that local union executives went back to meet their rank and file to brief them on the outcome of the meeting with the leadership.
That, he said, was what took place on Thursday.