The College of Education Teachers’ Association of Ghana (CETAG) has served notice that it will resume its strike on January 6, 2023.
According to the association, all the outstanding issues contained in the communiqué signed on 16th December, 2022, which the Minister promised to resolve within two weeks after the suspension of the strike, remain unresolved to date.
Contained in a release dated January 5, 2023, CETAG explained that the resumption of the strike is imminent as the stakeholders have not attached the needed seriousness to their concerns regarding Conditions of Service for over two years now.
“Following a meeting held between the Government Team and CETAG on 4th January 2023, over the outstanding issues of CETAG, the National Council of CETAG met to evaluate what transpired and concluded that the strike action, which was suspended on 17th December 2022, shall resume on Friday, January 6, 2023, if the two days grace period given to the Minister expires without a resolution of the outstanding issues.”
CETAG
CETAG stated that the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) never took any steps to seek a financial mandate from the Finance Ministry for the three outstanding generic allowances as promised. Due to this, the association rejected the January 2023 effective date for CETAG’s 2022 Conditions of Service which the parties settled on at the beginning of the negotiations in August 2021.
“The effective date of January 2023 which the Government Team wants to unilaterally impose on CETAG instead of the mutually agreed effective date of January 2022 is totally unacceptable.”
CETAG
According to CETAG, they can no longer trust the assurances given by the stakeholders to seek a further financial mandate for the three outstanding generic allowances since all previous assurances were never fulfilled.
They emphasized that “GTEC has failed to disclose to CETAG the amount it has proposed to be paid as all-year-round work compensation as well as the time the payment shall be made”.
CETAG demands better condition of service
In December last year, the Colleges of Education Teachers Association of Ghana (CETAG) suspended its strike after over a month in demand of better conditions of service.
The strike which occurred distorted the academic calendar in various colleges across the country including the end-of-semester examination and compelled the Minister of Education to intervene pledging to resolve the matter in two weeks.
The National President of CETAG, Prince Obeng-Himah Binghi, explained that members still have a number of options on the table including summoning the government before the Labour Commission to redeem its pledge.
Then, he noted that the Minister of Education appealed to GETAG on three different occasions “so that it will pave the way for him to intervene personally and resolve the issue two weeks after suspension”.
However, CETAG revealed that it may haul the Ministry of Education and by extension, the government before the National Labour Commission should the Minister of Education’s commitment to resolving their working demands fail.
Also, in January last year, CETAG suspended its industrial actions across all the 46 public Colleges of Education in the country. The decision was taken at an emergency meeting held on January 17, 2022.
This action came on the heels of, among other things, the failure by the government to implement the 2017-2020 conditions of service as agreed.
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