The University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) branch at the University of Ghana (UG) has voted against the Association’s National Executive Committee’s decision to call off its statewide strike.
596 UTAG members voted against the strike suspension, while 127 others voted to support the decision of the UTAG National Executive Committee to suspend the strike, according to a tally result signed by the Electoral Commissioner of the UTAG-UG chapter, Dr. Innocent Lawson.
This indicates that 82.4 percent of the 723 members of the UTAG-UG who voted want the strike to continue, while 17.6 percent want academic work resumed.
Academic work at the University of Ghana, Legon, is still on hold as a result of the vote’s results.
The University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) has decided to put its strike on hold for the time being.
This came after UTAG’s National Executive Committee had an emergency meeting on Monday to assess the strike’s progress.
Meetings between UTAG’s leadership, Parliament’s Education Committee, the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission, the Education Minister, and the Labour Minister had concluded inconclusively the week before.
UTAG wants the government to reinstate the 2012 service conditions, which set the monthly salary for entry-level lecturers at $2,084.
The Association claims that the new agreement has decreased the basic rates for its members to $997.84.
Former President John Agyekum Kufuor, Sam Jonah, and a number of Vice-Chancellors, among others, have spoken out in support of the professors’ return to the classroom.
However, according to a statement from UTAG, the NEC agreed to respect the recommendations of prominent leaders, the Select Committee on Education, and the court’s decision to call off the strike.
The decision, according to the NEC, will be in effect until March 4, at which point a favorable resolution will have been obtained by further interaction.
Source: myjoyonline.com
