National Labour Commission directs CETAG to call off strike
The College of Education Teachers Association of Ghana (CETAG) has been ordered by the National Labour Commission (NLC) to end its strike and appear before the Commission for an investigation. This follows the Association’s leadership’s failure to show up for an NLC hearing on their industrial action on Wednesday, August 02, 2023. On Wednesday, August…
The College of Education Teachers Association of Ghana (CETAG) has been ordered by the National Labour Commission (NLC) to end its strike and appear before the Commission for an investigation.
This follows the Association’s leadership’s failure to show up for an NLC hearing on their industrial action on Wednesday, August 02, 2023.
On Wednesday, August 9, 2023, the NLC also ordered CETAG to appear before the Commission.
The Commission emphasized that because engagements were taking place, CETAG needed to end its strike.
The NLC claims that CETAG’s leadership informed the Commission in writing that it had no issues with it (the NLC) and would not appear before it on the day of the NLC’s hearing.
On August 1, 2023, the Colleges of Education Teachers Association of Ghana began an ongoing industrial strike since the government had not implemented the “negotiated” conditions of employment for its members.
The Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) and CETAG participated in prolonged discussions in 2021 over a new condition of service for CETAG members.
After CETAG’s strike in January 2023, this caused the NLC to intervene with a Compulsory Arbitration.
The NLC issued an Arbitral Award Order on May 2, 2023, marking the conclusion of the Compulsory Arbitration and providing CETAG members a new condition of service beginning on January 1, 2023.
According to the Association, once the Compulsory Arbitral Award of the NLC was issued, the parties went on to approve the negotiating agreement, which had been submitted by FWSC to the Ministry of Finance (MoF) on May 26, 2023, for approval and execution.
They asserted that despite letters to the Ministry demanding the prompt execution of the negotiated accord, the MoF had declined to act on the FWSC’s letter and the NLC’s Arbitral Orders.
As a result, Association members resolved to stop working at all 46 institutions of education if the government did not uphold the conditions of the agreements by Monday, July 31, 2023.
