Due to demands for the payment of the Cost of Living Allowance, four teacher unions have announced an ongoing statewide strike that will begin on Monday, July 4. (COLA).
The unions are the Teachers and Educational Workers Union, the Coalition of Concerned Teachers Ghana, the National Association of Graduate Teachers, and the Ghana National Association of Teachers.
They claim that the government’s failure to pay the COLA, which could have helped to lessen the effects of the growing cost of living, is to blame for their industrial action.
However, the employees have stopped providing their services inside and outside of the classroom as of June 30 due to a deadline that was not met.
The General Secretary of the GNAT, Thomas Musah, said on Monday during a joint press conference that all of their requests for the government to take proper action had been ignored.
At a news conference held in Accra on Monday morning, July 4, 2022, the unions announced the strike.
“The burden is too much for us to handle. Even more so, we oppose the unequal pay in this nation’s public services. Due to the fact that the June 30, 2022 deadline we given the government for the payment of the Cost of Living Allowance has passed, we are now forced to officially inform Ghanaians of our plan to strike.
“As a result, we’ve made the decision to start a strike action starting today, Monday, July 4, 2022. By doing this, we are alerting the public to the fact that we are discontinuing all of our services in the pre-tertiary education sector, including both teaching and non-teaching staff, he said.
Meanwhile, the Employment and Labour Relations Ministry says it has invited the leadership of the teacher unions to a meeting over their demands.
It, however, says only the leadership of GNAT had responded to attend, with NAGRAT and CCT yet to respond.
The unions released a joint statement to explain their action.
Read the full release by the teacher unions below:
