National Chairman for Tertiary Education Workers’ Union of Ghana (TEWU-GH), Sulemana Abdul Rahman, has revealed that the Union has written to the Teachers’ and Educational Workers’ Union over its decision to detach itself from the national union.
According to him, as required by the regulation of TEWU, which specifies that a six months’ notice must be given to that effect, his union has acted accordingly although the General Secretary of TEWU-TUC, Mark Korankye, insists his side has not received any letter.
“We have actually written to TEWU national. If the General Secretary says that they have not received any official communique to that effect, then I may not be able to challenge him because they did not write to acknowledge receipt of the letter we had sent to them… I can tell you that because of what we have written to them, if you ask him as the General Secretary, he will tell you that they have even written, inviting us for meetings [but] we boycotted it because we thought that if they had any message to give us, they could pen it down and send to us.”
Sulemana Abdul Rahman
Commenting on the TEWU-GH’s decision to break away from the national body, Mr Rahman explained that the conditions of service for members of public universities have been ignored for too long. He noted that the union’s condition of service as catalogued in its press statement, has expired since 2008 and it has been at the doorstep of TEWU national to have a relook at the conditions of service of the public universities, but to no avail.
“… Finally, we started the negotiations around 2019 and [in] 2019 when we finally had an MoU signed by TEWU national including us, the local executives of the public universities, together with Fair Wages. In fact, at the end of the day, the documents that was sent to the public universities for implementation, about half or almost all the monetary agreements that was agreed on the MoU was cut off. Our checks on the ground show that our national officers were aware of this. This is what has actually angered almost everybody and we said we can no longer still continue to have officers who can go behind us and betray us in such manner.”
Sulemana Abdul Rahman
Labour expert condemns TEWU-GH’s detachment
On his part, a Labour Consultant, Austin Gamey, has criticised the decision by the Workers of Public Universities in Ghana to detach themselves from the Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU) of the Trades Union Congress (TUC). Mr Gamey indicated that reconciliation would have been the best choice for the two unions.
“It is most unfortunate to hear that… I was expecting that the one speaking now will be inviting, by way of trying to mend fences. Regardless of the pressure that might be on now, if he could organise and get the people invited to a meeting for a kind of reconciliation.”
Austin Gamey
Reacting to TEWU-GH’s reasons for detaching itself from the national union, Mr. Gamey described the news of the detachment as unfortunate.
“I feel very sad. I say so because of course, in unity lies strength as far as unions and its organisations are concerned. So, anytime there is a split, wherever in the union, it is quite a worrying matter.”
Austin Gamey
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