The KNUST chapter of the Tertiary Education Workers Union of Ghana (TEWU-GH) has said that failure by the university management to release members’ dues to them will leave them with no option than to disrupt academic activities.
The union has accused management of the university for refusing to recognize them on the university council and other committees as TEWU-Ghana after they decided to part ways with Trades Union Congress (TUC) about a year ago.
Addressing the media m after new excutives of the union were sworn in, Chairman of TEWU-GH KNUST branch, Charles Arthur, disclosed plans by the union to strike if management fails to honour their requests.
“It is stated in the Labour Act that we are supposed to support and protect the social and economic rights of our members. So if management fails to pay us our money which it deducts from our salaries every month for more than a year now and our members agitate on these issue we are going to support them.
“We are not going to tamper with the mid-semester exams which comes off next week but if after the exams management of KNUST fails to meet our demands, we are going to cause a shakeup and that may include strike”, he declares.
He revealed the reason behind the need to break away from TEWU-TUC to establish of TEWU-GH.
“TEWU-TUC was compromised and was not fighting for our welfare so all public universities decided to create TEWU-GH in 2022. It is disheartening for management of KNUST to claim that they don’t know the difference between us (TEWU-GH) and the other union. Even committees that we are supposed to be on them, management of the university has prevented us from having a representation, making it difficult for us to fight for the interest of our members.
:Three months after we have come into force, the vice-chancellor herself told us that some people said they don’t belong to us so they cannot recognize us as a union and we only know if the university management is conniving with some people to form a nameless, faceless or ghosts”, he decried.
Mr Arthur, therefore, called the minister of education and other stakeholders to intervene before the union undertakes any action.
“We have promised to cooperate and collaborate with the university because we don’t want to be called bad people so we want the minister of education to intervene in this matter but if managements fails to address our requests, then they should be ready for any action we take which may disrupt the activities of the university”, he warned.
A 5-member executive was sworn in office to steer the affairs of the KNUST branch of TEWU-GH for the next four years.
By Issah Zakariah/Akoma FM/3news.com