The Leadership Of Senior Staff Of Universities Threaten To Resume Strike As Government’s Deadline Elapses

The leadership of the Senior Staff Association of Universities of Ghana has given indications that it will resume its strike, but this time a full-blown one if the government fails to communicate plans to pay interest on their tier-2 arrears by close of day, today, Monday, July 19, 2021.

They say the government’s own deadline to resolve the issues by July 19 was the basis for the suspension of the earlier strike.

The National Chairman of the association, Zakaria Mohammed, said members in all fourteen public universities will lay down their tools if nothing is heard from government since they have no further assurances of their concerns being addressed.

“If the deadline elapses and nothing is heard from the  government, we are going to embark on a full-blown strike… They came out with their own deadline that looking at the issue they can use 30^th June to 19^th of July to settle all the matters which were agreed with and we suspended our strike. So if government is not able to honour its promise, why should we continue to be waiting? We have to go back to strike,” he said.

Zakaria Mohammed bemoaned what he describes as the government’s attempts to ignore their demand for a favourable condition of service.

“To be frank, government is being very snubbish on our side to all the demands that we have been making and government has been taking senior staff of the universities for granted for far too long.”

The Association declared a strike on May 18, 2021, over the failure of the government to pay its members Tier 2 pension contributions.

Members of the association were asking for the award of market premium and non-basic allowance, as well as the finalisation of negotiations of their conditions of service.

The National Labour Commission and the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) met with the leadership of the senior staff on Wednesday, June 9, 2021, in a bid to resolve their grievances.

This compelled the association to call off its strike.

However, the group is agitated because it feels the government has not shown enough commitment to addressing their concerns.