GTEC appeals to TEWU-GH to call off strike

The Tertiary Education Workers Union Ghana (TEWU-GH) chapter at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) has declared a strike over their representation in the university Governing Council.

The strike prompted the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) to convene a meeting with the TEWU-GH to find an amicable solution and subsequently call off the strike.

The impasse came to the fore at the inauguration of the KNUST Governing Council where the slot of the TEWU was taken up by the Teacher Education Workers Union of the Trades Union Congress (TEWU-TUC), a decision the TEWU-GH objected to.

A letter signed by the Director-General of the GTEC, Prof. Ahmed Jinapor, noted with concern, some disturbing occurrences relative to the representation of TEWU on some governing councils of traditional universities.

“These disturbances are apparently informed by TEWU-GH and TEWU-TUC, both claiming the rightful representation on the governing councils of your universities,” he stated.

The letter, addressed to all Vice Chancellors of public traditional universities, the Executive Secretary, Vice-Chancellors Ghana (VCG) and the Chairmen of the TEWU-GH and TEWU-TUC, therefore, requested them to assist the commission in addressing the situation.

“GTEC humbly requests you (universities) to provide it with the following information: The position of the Act/Statutes relative to TEWU representation on your respective councils, an audit of the membership of the two unions on your respective campuses, and recommendations from your university guided by your legal counsel on how GTEC should address the issue for the smooth operation of the councils,” the letter said.

The letter further requested the various unions – TEWU-GH and TEWU-TUC to also provide evidence of registration, negotiation and bargaining certificates and all other documents that might be relevant in addressing the issue.

Appeal to union

Speaking to the media after the meeting with the executives of the KNUST chapter TEWU-GH, Prof. Jinapor assured all stakeholders in  KNUST that “we have the full assurance of the leadership of TEWU-GH that they are going to go back, meet with their members and see to it that on Monday work resumes”.

He stressed that the commission was not interested in taking sides, adding that GTEC was going to work with TEWU-TUC and the university management to make sure that the issue relative to representation on the council was resolved.

Prof. Jinapor was happy that the meeting had been positive in the sense that there were a number of revelations that had come before GTEC that it was not aware of. 

Roadmap

The National Chairman of TEWU-GH, Sulemana Abdul Rahman, who led the team to the GTEC, said, “We have agreed on a roadmap of how to resolve the issues with the Director-General of GTEC.

“We believe the within about two weeks time, these issues will be put to rest because there have been a lot of revelations that have come out in the meeting and we think that with what has happened it will be resolved, so, our members at KNUST and UDS, we want to plead with them that they should have patience,” the National Chairman of TEWU-GH stated.

Mr Rahman expressed confidence that the DG and his team would make sure that those issues were dealt with, adding that as a national chairman, “I want to say that the strike will surely be suspended.”

He said TEWU-GH received a letter from the DG, which was addressed to vice-chancellors and registrars and both unions' chairmen, that is, TEWU Ghana and TEWU TUC, “to make sure that we submit our list, or the public universities submit the list of these unions”.

 Mr Rahman said at the end of the day, any of the two that had the majority in any of the universities was the one that was supposed to be represented.

The KNUST Local Chairman of TEWU-GH, Charles Arthur, thanked the GTEC for the meeting and gave the assurance that the strike would be suspended by (today) Monday, while the engagements continued.