Executives of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) and the Technical University Teachers Association of Ghana (TUTAG) have walked out of a meeting with the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC), citing bad faith, contempt and lackadaisical attitude on the part of the Employer/FWSC towards the discussion of very important aspects of their conditions of service.
In a meeting with Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) on Wednesday morning, the two Associations noted that University Teachers would no longer tolerate the gross disrespect and lack of commitment towards their quest for improvement in their conditions of service.
They insisted that UTAG/TUTAG wouldn’t be part of meetings that do not yield benefits and warned that the voices of University Lecturers would be heard soon in the language better understood by the Employer/Government.
President of the Legon Chapter of the University Teachers Association of Ghana, UTAG, Prof Ransford Gyampo accused the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission of downplaying the gravity of their grievances and thus warned of boycotting future meetings.
“It’s been almost 3 years. Within the whole of last year, we’ve met about three or four times and they talk about only trivial things, nothing about how to improve conditions of service of our members.
The substantive issue relating to market premium, they don’t want to discuss it. We took a decision that if after tabling our issues they treat it lackadaisically, we wouldn’t be a part of it,” Prof Gyampo noted in an interview with 3FM.
“We have walked out of the meeting and we’re not honouring any invitations to meetings any more until we know who is convening and we’re sure that the meeting wouldn’t be child’s play,” he further added.
The Teachers Associations say they have been given greenlight by their members to initiate a strike if their one-week ultimatum is not met by government.