JUSAG strike brings court process on knees

The strike by the Judicial Service Staff Association of Ghana (JUSAG) is still in full force despite the association meeting with the government on three different occasions this week.

At a press conference in Accra Friday, the General Secretary of the association, Mr Derrick Annan, announced that the government was yet to furnish the union with any concrete proposal.

“Government promised to send us some form of correspondence, but as of now, we have not received anything to help us convince our members as to the way forward. At the moment, we cannot help but to continue to remain on strike,’’ he said.

Strike

Members of JUSAG withdrew their services on May 20, 2016, accusing the government of delaying the implementation of their consolidated salaries as recommended by the Judicial Council.

According to the association, the government had failed to honour its part of an agreement to implement the new salary structure after it appealed to JUSAG members to call off an earlier strike on April 1, 2016.

The association has taken an entrenched position to remain on strike until the government meets its demands.

Appeal

According to Mr Annan, the government met with the association last Tuesday, Thursday and yesterday to find ways to resolve the impasse and was hopeful that something positive could come out of those deliberations.

“We were positive that something good could come out of the deliberations, but we cannot call off the strike without receiving anything concrete from the government,’’ he explained 

He said the association was aware of appeals from the Judicial Council and other sections calling on it to call off the strike but it had to also protect the interest of its members.

“The bread and butter of our members is also very paramount,’’ he said.

NLC

He stated that the association had been served with a motion filed by the National Labour Commission (NLC) at the court challenging the legality of their strike, but it was yet to file its response.

“We are having difficulties in filing our response because our members who are supposed to facilitate such a process are on strike. We don’t even know how the NLC managed to file its motion at the court,’’ he explained.