Staff of the Simon Diedong Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies (SDD-UBIDS), in the Upper West Region have embarked on an industrial action over delays in the payment of their salaries.
Their colleagues at the C.K. Tedam University of Technology and Applied Sciences in the Upper East Region have also laid down their tools over the same concerns.
The workers’ union is made up of members of University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG), the Ghana Association of University Administrators (GAUA), Senior Staff Association Universities of Ghana (SSA-UoG), and the Teachers and Educational Workers’ Union (TEWU).
They say the industrial strike action follows the failure by the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD), the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) and SDD UBIDS Management to adhere to a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA).
The agreement was signed on August 17, 2021, leading to the suspension of a local strike that was embarked on by staff of SDD-UBIDS and CKT-UTAS on August 2, 2021.
The workers, in the Simon Diedong Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies (SDD-UBIDS) and C. K. Tedem University of Technology and Applied Sciences (CKT-UTAS), in the past, threatened to strike over concerns about the migration of their members onto the government’s payroll system.
In a letter to the Education Minister, the unions complained that resolutions that led to the suspension of their previous strike in August were not honored.
But in this latest development, the groups say the failure of the government to fulfill its part of the bargain has compelled them to resume the industrial action.
“Till today (16th of November, 2021), we still have not received satisfactory responses as stated above hence the need to reactivate our suspended strike action today, starting with phase one of the strike (Lock down of offices and Lecture Halls followed by a press release)”, a statement from the union mentioned.
