These strikes are avoidable

It is gratifying that at long last the Technical University Teachers Association of Ghana (TUTAG)has called off its strike.

Since October 7, 2019, TUTAG declared an indefinite strike to press home its demand for better conditions of service for staff of technical universities in the country.

Another reason for the strike was to demand the release of a staff audit report conducted by the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE).

Reports that some executive members of TUTAG and government officials, led by the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, met last Wednesday afternoon to dialogue ways to address the demands of the association in a bid to bring an end to its protracted strike action ended in a stalemate, was therefore a worrying development.

Both sides were reported to have locked horns in an eight-hour-long meeting but failed to achieve its purpose as the parties stood their grounds, failing to reach a compromise.

In the midst of all this were the students who had become victims of circumstance and the Daily Graphic thought they should not be used as sacrificial lambs.

We believed that the onus lay on both the government and the striking lecturers and workers to consider the fact that they had signed a social contract with the students, who should not be used as a bait, since they had fulfilled their part of the contract by paying their school fees and should not be disadvantaged because of circumstances they knew nothing about.

However, we find it worrying that in spite of the conversion since 2016, requirements that come with such a conversion should still be an issue to warrant an indefinite strike by lecturers, thereby grounding academic work.

We think that whatever issues militating against the smooth implementation and academic work of the technical universities should be employed at all cost.

Once they have been converted, the emoluments for university lecturers should be applicable to lecturers in the technical universities and such an issue should not hold back the smooth running of the universities.

We know that TUTAG has also raised issues with the NCTE for not making available the staff audit it conducted on its staff after the conversion of the polytechnics into technical universities.

The Daily Graphic, however, recalls that the audit report was shared with the councils and management of the universities with recommendations and actions to be taken if any.

Now that the strike has been called off, we think it is important that TUTAG focuses on the relevant issues because such a request could affect some of its members whose qualifications were relaxed to enable them to be part of the migration.

We are happy that TUTAG has listened to the numerous appeals and resumed work.

The Daily Graphic nonetheless thinks that we have as a country rather become used to strikes before we do the needful and calls for agencies mandated to ensure that the right things are done, to be up and doing and not allow things to degenerate before taking action.

Already, a lot of time has been lost and those highly affected by this strike action are the students who are bearing its brunt.

We appeal to workers to soften their stance in such circumstances, since the government will be more than willing to meet their demands if the economy can support them.

Our appeal to both employers, and in this case the government, and employees is to endeavour as much as possible to avoid strike actions, which only derail achievements made.