The National President of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG), Professor Solomon Nunoo, says the association will update the court on its next line of action later today, February 15, 2022.
According to him, the association has held some internal meetings after its meetings with the National Labour Commission and the Education Ministry ‘’yielded no results.’’
“We will update the court on the outcome of our meetings today. We have had two meetings with the government so far with the last being last Thursday. Both ended inconclusively.”
“We (UTAG) held a meeting on Sunday to review our industrial action so far. We will report to the court on the outcome of our meeting,” he said in a Citi News interview.
The Public Relations Officer of the Ministry of Education, Kwesi Kwarteng, also said: “We have had meetings in various forms. As of now, a lot of these engagements have ended inconclusively. We still have not come up with concrete resolutions.”
“We will be heading to court on Tuesday for a determination of the case. We will wait for the outcome of the court and see the way forward,” he told Citi News.
He insisted that the Ministry will be unable to negotiate with UTAG, as long as it remains on strike.
“Our Labour laws are clear on that. We can’t be expected to relent on this when UTAG does not seem to be willing to compromise.”
Striking members of the University Teacher’s Association of Ghana say they will not return to the lecture halls until the government meets their demands for better conditions of service.
UTAG has been on strike since January 10 to force the government to restore the conditions of service agreed upon in 2012.
The 2012 conditions of service pegged the Basic plus Market Premium of a lecturer at $2,084.42.
UTAG has complained that the current arrangement has reduced its members’ basic premiums to $997.84.
The National Labour Commission dragged UTAG to court, but the two were told to return to the negotiation table.
The Commission sued, seeking the enforcement of its order, which was defied by public university teachers in the country.
The Commission earlier directed UTAG to call off its strike, but this directive was not adhered to.
