The National Labour Commission (NLC) is urging technical university lecturers to “immediately” call off their strike and “return to work.”
This was contained in the Commission’s ruling on the impasse between the university lecturers, Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC), the Education Ministry and the Labour Ministry.
The ruling, signed by the Deputy Chairperson, Mrs. Rose Karikari Anang also implored the government to pay TUTAG members who qualify for electricity, rent, and security allowances at the end of December 2019.
The government is also supposed to pay them car maintenance allowance and off-campus allowance by the end of December 2019.
The Commission, on the matter of entertainment and fuel allowances for the university lecturers, said those “shall be paid to deserving officeholders in December 2019.”
“The back pay of the above allowances, effective August 2019, shall be paid in January and February 2020,” the Commission further ruled, stressing that the parties go back to negotiate and “act in good faith at all times.”
Members of the Technical University Teachers Association of Ghana (TUTAG) have been on strike since October 7, 2019 after emoluments due them were not released despite a directive from the Ministry of Finance to the Controller and Accountant General’s Department.
Technical Universities Administrators Association of Ghana (TUAAG), also joined demanding full benefits of migration onto the public universities’ salary structure.
Deadlock after an earlier meeting
An earlier meeting between Government and representatives of TUTAG ended inconclusively.
The three-week continuous industrial action by TUTAG and the recent indefinite strike also declared by the administrators is having dire consequences on technical education in the country at the moment.
The strike by the two unions is over the government’s failure to migrate them onto the public universities’ salary structure.
Students in some of the technical universities have also been holding various protests to impress upon the government to meet their demands and ensure that they return to class to enable academic work resume.
