The Technical Universities Teachers’ Association of Ghana (TUTAG) has described as misleading claims made by the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) on negotiations so far.
The Commission on Thursday said the lecturers showed bad faith by declaring strike after series of negotiations, which saw them all migrated onto the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS) effective August, 2019.
TUTAG declared an indefinite strike on Monday, October 7, demanding a wholesale migration of lecturers onto the same salary scheme enjoyed by teachers of other public universities.
They adduced that since the conversion of some polytechnics into technical universities in 2016, government has failed to put in place measures to enable lecturers enjoy benefits received by university lecturers.
But FWSC said despite long-drawn negotiations involving four ministers of state, TUTAG rejected all offers.
“TUTAG however demanded an immediate surrender of all the concessions government made,” the Commission said in part.
It added: “In effect, government did not reject a single one of their demands. But unfortunately, TUTAG did not table any compromises during the process; a stance which is inconsistent with negotiating in good faith.”
But TUTAG says the claims are “misleading and contains serious factual inaccuracies”.
It started by stating: “TUTAG has not been migrated onto the SSSS for public universities along with all allowances due them as claimed by the FWSC.”
The teachers explained in their reply that per a letter dated August 6, 2019 from the Minister of Finance, they were supposed to be migrated but only one item on the Structure was computed and paid at the end of September.
“Unfortunately, the migration occurred without the requisite allowances due TUTAG per the public university salary grade structure.”
Again, it said it did not demand any relaxation of the requirements to become full-fledged professor as claimed by the Commission and that those requirements are properly captured in the Scheme of Service and the respective statutes of the various universities in Ghana.
TUTAG said the ministers present did not table any proposal to financially support staff of technical universities.
“TUTAG rather reminded government of the need to invest in staff development at the young technical universities, stating the need for government to provide support for staff to upgrade their qualifications, to which the Ministers indicated could be given a thought.”
The lecturers asked students in the various technical universities to remain calm as their fight “is necessary to maintain and sustain an environment conducive for motivational teaching and learning for the good of all students and Ghana at large”.
Source: 3news.com|Ghana