Members of the Teachers and Educational Workers Union of Ghana (TEWU-GH) are set to commence a nation-wide industrial action on February 1.
This comes after the the January end ultimatum for the government to meet their demands for improved conditions of services.
Chairman of TEWU-GH, Sulemana Abdul Rahman explained that some of their retired members did not enjoy the lump sum amount due them on pension whilst those in active service did not enjoy the various allowances due them.
Speaking to JoyNews on January 30, he explained about 10,000 of their members across the various public universities will not render their services from Thursday.
I can assure you that we are over 10,000 members in the public universities across the country. So from tomorrow, the whole country will know whether we are on strike or we are not on strike, because we are still at the workplace that is why people were not seeing the seriousness.
You know GAWU and SSA-SoG have already declared and they are on strike but because we were at the workplaces the impact was not there. The government has not felt the heat.
From tomorrow government will feel the heat and do the needful. Even though we do not wish to embark on a strike, as I said, when you are being pushed to the wall, the only option that you have is to respect the voice of the members by putting down your tools, which we have done.”
He explained that the strike is in stages; therefore, some important sectors like security men, drivers, and some secretaries will not join initially. However, after some time, all members will be withdrawn.
We are of the view that the strike is in stages for now, we are asking the security to remain at the post. But when we get to a stage where we need to withdraw everybody, I can assure you that the university will be on lockdown. If the security men are not there to work, you can imagine what will happen,” he added.
Meanwhile, he said, if the government called them to the negotiation table and addressed their concerns, they would call off the strike.
