Our strike still in force; gov’t yet to address our concerns – Senior Staff of Universities
Our strike still in force; gov’t yet to address our concerns – Senior Staff of Universities
The Senior Staff Association of Universities of Ghana says it is yet to finalize a settlement with the government on the demand for non-payment of tier 2 pension arrears and other contractual agreements.
This comes after the association indicated that its members will still be on strike despite government’s agreement to pay a Cost of Living Allowance (COLA).
Speaking to Citi News, the National Chairman of the Association, Isaac Donkoh said the group may suspend the strike if the agreement meets their demand.
“We have met with the Ministries of Education and Labour. We are also supposed to sign some agreements with them but when we got there it looked as if because of some emergencies, we couldn’t sign the agreements, so we had to come home. We agreed on five things and the parties involved had to sign, when we got there the Ministers were not available. We are not going to call off the strike, but we are going to suspend it if our members are okay with the terms.”
The group said despite government’s agreement for the payment of Cost of Living Allowance, its outstanding labour issues remain unresolved.
It cited the non-payment of tier 2 pension arrears and contractual agreements among the reasons why their industrial action is still in full force.
“Our strike is still in force, so we have asked all our members to stay at home because COLA was one leg of our demands. The rest are still pending – the government is yet to meet us on the remaining demands, so we are still at home”, Isaac Donkor added.
For example, the Secretary of the KNUST chapter of the Senior Staff Association of Universities of Ghana, Kwadwo Bediako-Baryeh, noted that tier 2 interests accrued over the years and the desire for allowances to be normalised were major concerns.
