TEWU embarks on nationwide strike due to non-payment of allowance
The non-teaching staff of the Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU) in the Ghana Education Service (GES) have withdrawn their services across schools due to non-payment of their Continuous Professional Development(CPD) allowances for two years.
The Union is informing the government and its agencies, parents, and the public that the non-teaching staff would not be at post from January 5, 2022, as the Senior High Schools re-opened for academic activities.
The non-teaching staff on strike include but are not limited to the Domestic Bursars, Matrons, Cooks, Pantry Hands, Labourers, Cleaners, Administrators, Accountants, Librarians, Logistics and Supply Officers, and Internal Auditors.
Mr Mark Dankyira Korankye, the General Secretary of TEWU announced the indefinite strike on Tuesday at a press briefing in Accra.
Mr Korankye said the non-teaching members of the Union have been sidelined in the payment of the CPD allowance, while their teaching counterparts have received two tranches of the allowance since the package was announced by the government in 2020.
He said the Minister for Education in 2020 announced the approval of the CPD allowance for both teaching and non-teaching staff of the GES, GH¢1,200.00 for professional teachers, GH¢800.00 for non-professional teachers, and GH¢600.00 for non-teaching staff.
Mr Korankye said since the announcement of the payment of the allowance, the Professional Teachers and the non-Professional Teachers were paid, leaving the non-teaching staff completely out.
“The leadership of TEWU have been following up to ensure that the non-teaching staff benefits from their allowances, but all our efforts have not yielded any results,” he said.
He said to make matters worse, in March last year, President Akufo-Addo in the State of the Nation’s Address presented to Parliament, announced the payment of the CPD allowance to both Teaching and Non-Teaching Staff of the Ghana Education Service.
This announcement by the President, the General Secretary said caused a lot of agitation among its members with different accusations, stressing that the members were not ready for any more explanations.
“TEWU leadership, need not remind our education authorities that, both the non-teaching and teaching staff, play complementary roles in creating the environment that will promote quality teaching and learning.”, he said.
He said a formal complaint had been lodged with the National Labour Commission with the hope that the management of GES and other stakeholders would play their roles to resolve the problem with the payment of the CPD allowance for the non-teaching staff, to avoid any action that will disturb the industrial harmony in the educational institutions, especially in our second cycle institutions but nothing came out of it.
“At the last National Executive Council meeting held in December 2021, it was resolved among others, that if by the close of the year 2021, the CPD allowance was not paid to the non-teaching staff of the Ghana Education Service, then as schools re-open for the last phase of the second semester of 2020/2021 academic year, our members will withdraw our services to push home our demand for the payment of this CPD allowance.”
Source: GNA