Yvonne Atilego
The University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) has announced that its members would be withdrawing their services from January 10, 2022.
According to UTAG, the strike is occasioned by the government’s failure to address the worsening conditions of service of lecturers.
A communiqué after two emergency meetings by the Association, explained that the government has flouted the agreed timelines to address its concerns.
The leadership of the lecturers’ union “reiterated its resolve to follow through with the decision to withdraw teaching and related activities until further notice”.
According to the statement from UTAG, their members have decried the pittance agreed to be paid as annual research allowance and will want to have the government reconsider the payment of a more realistic research allowance as this is critical to their research output, promotion and ultimately national development.
The National Executive Committee (NEC) of UTAG, which directed the withdrawal of services following two emergency meetings, has consequently asked all UTAG members across its 15 branches to observe the directive.
”UTAG has been signaling this course of action for some time now and had previously suspended similar strikes after the government intervened and committed to address concerns of poor service conditions and market premium due University teachers, particularly UTAG members”, it noted.
According to the Association, not only has government failed to address the concerns within the agreed timelines, it has also implemented recommendations of a Labour Market Survey report in a manner that the association deems meaningless as the implementation is without any accompanying technical report on the implementable market premium and does not address the pertinent issues of improved conditions of service.
The communiqué announcing the strike and signed by the NEC members said it may be recalled that the Interim Market Premium which was instituted following the implementation of the Single Spine Pay Policy got frozen, per a Government White Paper, in 2013, for the purpose of the conduct of a Labour Market Survey to determine a Market Premium payable to workers who deserve it.
”To date, this determination according to UTAG has not been made, which has resulted in the erosion of the University Teacher’s salary”.
The communiqué stated that there was the hope that by completing and implementing the Labour Market Survey Report of 2019, a review of the Interim Market Premium would have put the University Teacher on a relatively good salary stead, but this was not the case.
Meanwhile, UTAG as a matter of urgency is calling on the government to restore members to the 2013 Interim Market Premium of 114 percent of Basic Salary in the interim whilst the Government goes ahead to formulate guidelines to implement the appropriate recommendations to address the Conditions of Service of the University Teacher.
