There’s growing tension across public university campuses as the Tertiary Education Workers Union (TEWU-GH) has issued a seven-day ultimatum threatening to strike over what it calls an unfair decision by the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission, GTEC.
TEWU-GH is protesting a recent GTEC directive that permits a rival union, TEWU-TUC, to represent non-teaching staff on the governing councils of public universities.
But the leadership of TEWU- TUC has asked management of the public universities not to tolerate indiscipline on the campuses.
The move comes after months of confusion and internal wrangling between the two unions.
The Ministry of Education, earlier in May, began the process of reconstituting governing councils for all public universities but opted to leave out both TEWU-GH and TEWU-TUC following disagreements over which group should take a seat at the table.
Eventually, the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission stepped in and ruled in favour of TEWU-TUC granting them the mandate to serve on the councils.
King James Azortibah, the General Secretary of TEWU-TUC said “all these years we have been negotiating with our collective bargaining certificate that will have covered all the public universities, that’s why our name is in the law since 1958, so whose interest are they seeking, they are seeking their own interest”.
“Now we are going to organise all our members and even where our members are not, we will mobilize them to serve on the governing councils”. He noted.
But that decision does not sit well with TEWU-GH. The union has expressed anger and disappointment and is now threatening to embark on industrial action if GTEC doesn’t reverse the directive.
“That one, we must say it, we have served seven days’ notice and after that the national leadership will meet and take a decision,” Charles Arthur, Chairman of TEWU-GH KNUST said.
Meanwhile, TEWU-TUC is cautioning university authorities not to allow what it describes as “indiscipline” to fester on campus.
“We are hearing some people are giving seven day ultimatum we are not scared, indiscipline will never prevail over discipline in this country. The industrial relations space we are looking for productivity, we are contributing our quota we are giving our services for quality and peaceful educational space in the public universities, and we will work to encourage the vice chancellors not to encourage any indiscipline on the campuses,” Mr Azortibah said..
We sought clarity on how widespread TEWU-TUC’s influence is across campuses nationwide. Here’s what the leadership had to say.
“If you take TEWU KNUST we are 765, TEWU-TUC is 123, you go to UDS, UDS has 582 and TEWU-TUC they are 14, is serving on the governing council the property of TEWU-TUC, is a national property,” he said.
With both unions holding firm to their positions, university operations may soon face disruption. The coming days will be critical as GTEC and the Ministry of Education work to ease tensions and avoid a strike that could affect thousands of students.
