Executive Secretary of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Dr Anthony Yaw Baah, has expressed confidence that members of the various labour unions in the country will be satisfied with the agreed 15% Cost of Living Allowance with government.
According to him, the unions reached a compromise with government after the finance minister laid bare the “figures” to them. He revealed that if government had paid the 20% COLA demand by teachers, it was going to cost government “over GHC5 billion”. This, he explained, will not bode well for the struggling Ghanaian economy.
Describing the situation as a win-win, Dr Baah indicated that the leadership of the labour unions deemed it right to “back down a bit to allow government to spend” on other projects. He highlighted that the leadership narrowed its demand to allow some fiscal space for government to do other social intervention.
“We have done this job for a very long time and we have no doubt that our members are satisfied with 15%. So, I am very confident that we will get very positive feedback from our members… Of course, people are making all kinds of noise but the majority are saying that is the job… As I said, we finished only yesterday, so it takes time for us to get very meaningful feedback from our members.”
Dr Anthony Yaw Baah
The TUC executive secretary however stated that for now, it is only TUC members who have expressed their sentiments on the agreement and are yet to hear from the other leaders on what their members think. Nonetheless, he emphasized that he is very confident that “our members will be happy with 15%”.
“Because remember we got 7% for 2022, now if you add the 15% to the 7%, you are talking about 22% disposable income increase and that one, you can’t get it better.”
Dr Anthony Yaw Baah
Implementation of Cost-of-Living Allowance
Commenting on the implementation date for the COLA, Dr Baah noted that the minister for finance at the “retrospective table” requested for some time to plan the payment. He indicated that the minister will in due course engage the leaders of the teachers’ unions on the payment plan.
“So, we are hoping that it will not take too long. Again, we needed to understand because the situation we are in is not a very normal situation.”
Dr Anthony Yaw Baah
On his part, the Chairman of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), Rev. Isaac Owusu, expressed satisfaction with the outcome of yesterday’s negotiation and believes majority of his members are equally satisfied with the outcome.
Rev Owusu revealed that right after the meeting ended leaders of GNAT were able to communicate the news to members and the feedback was positive even though they couldn’t get the 20% they expected.
Touching on the resumption of teaching activities in the schools nationwide, Rev Owusu stated that when the agreement was signed by those from government side and that of organised labour, the General Secretary of GNAT made the pronouncement that “all teachers unions who were on strike have called off the strike” effective yesterday, 14th July, 2022. Additionally, he noted that the leaders of the association have sent text messages to all its members informing them that the strike has been called off.
“Personally, on our various social media platforms, I have duly informed our members… Today being Friday, and students having been in the house for almost two weeks, definitely, you might not get the full house today. So, we believe that by Monday, God willing, we will all be at work in full force.”
Rev. Isaac Owusu
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