National President of the Technical University Teachers Association (TUTAG), Collins Amankwah, has revealed that some of the demands by the association for its members do not pose financial burden on the government.

According to him, although other aspects will require some financial commitment, they are prepared to negotiate with government on that front. He indicated that the association is prepared to allow government to defer such payments to an appropriate time government will have the resources to pay.

Mr Amankwah explained that due to the flexibility of TUTAG’s demands, it will not countenance government ignoring their concerns.

“Some of our issues don’t have financial implications. Some of the issues border on leave, retirement and things like that. So, we don’t understand why government is dragging its feet with this issue. Secondly, some of the issues too, those that have financial implications, will be borne by the various universities and the universities, you know [with] their financial capacity, have negotiated with the various unions based on what they can afford. So, this has nothing to do with the Consolidated Fund for government to think that it will have some financial burden on the economy.”
Collins Amankwah

Commenting on TUTAG’s engagement with the finance ministry, Mr Amankwah stated that although the National Labor Commission has given its ruling on the matter for both sides to thrash out their issues, it is expecting the Commission to “enforce” its own ruling.

TUTAG’s negotiation with government

Mr Amankwah further highlighted that the association has exhausted all “diplomatic approaches” on the matter as it predates the current matter and it has still “not yielded the needed results”.

“… We have written a number of letters and even acknowledgment has been a challenge. So, if you don’t even [regard] acknowledgement of the letters, how much more should we expect to be invited for negotiations or things like that? Generally, I think that attention from the finance ministry is not the best and they have to up their game to ensure that some of these industrial actions are averted even before they rear their ugly heads.”
Collins Amankwah

The TUTAG President stated that if the association does not get approval before the budget is read, then its members will be in trouble. This, he explained, is the reason the association has considered it an apt moment to “push to ensure that the people who are supposed to work, work within the needed timeframe to ensure that our members will not be shortchanged” come 2023.

Mr Amakwah emphasized that the association is ready to engage government and it is not set out to take “their pound of flesh”. He explained that currently, members have withdrawn teaching related services.

“What we expect from authority is to give us the opportunity to engage. It should not be like a headmaster-student relationship that you sit somewhere and issue instructions that you think those instructions should take effect without hearing [us]. You know those issues are conditions of service issues and these should be discussed bilaterally. Government side cannot sit and then just bury the conditions of service anyhow. So, what we are requesting from government is that let’s sit down, let’s discuss the issues.”
Collins Amankwah

The TUTAG President underscored that if government does not budge in meeting the demands of teachers, its reluctance will bring “chaos” to the labour front.