In a meeting with government representatives on Tuesday, July 12, the leadership of the teacher unions that were on strike walked out, according to TV3’s Daniel Opoku, who has been following developments with the teacher unions. The meeting was intended to discuss the problems that led to the strike.
After leaving the meeting in Accra, Angel Carbonou, president of the National Association of Teachers (NAGRAT), and Thomas Musah, general secretary of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), both attendees, told journalists that the government representatives were pressuring the unions to end the strike before negotiations could begin.
They said they found this as a betrayal of trust hence, their decision to boycott the meeting.
Thomas Musah said “I think that what has happened today is very unfortunate. What we can say now is that our negotiation has come inconclusively and we are still on strike”
For his part, Mr Carbonou said “They are indicating and asking us to call off our strike before negotiations begin. So all it means is that the government side is not ready to continue negotiation unless the teacher unions call off the strike.
“They have held all organized labour unions hostage and this is a betrayal of trust because the understanding we had was that organized labour has been convened for us to find solution to the issue of COLA. Right now, since we are undesirable, we think that before they even walk us out of the meeting, we are walking out of the meetings ourselves.”
On Monday, 4th July 2022, the four unions in education, namely GNAT, NAGRAT, Teachers’ and Educational Workers’ Union (TEWU) and Coalition of Concerned Teachers, Ghana, withdrew their services in all the Pre-Tertiary educational space, to back their demand for the Cost-of-Living Allowance (COLA).
This involved both Teaching and Non-Teaching staff.
