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The Teachers and Educational Workers’ Union (TEWU) of TUC has called on its members and other stakeholders in the education sector to disregard two breakaway groups which claim to represent the interest of education workers.
At a press conference in Accra, the General Secretary of TEWU, Mark Dankyira Korankye, said TEWU remained the only union with a collective bargaining certificate to negotiate on behalf of non-teaching staff in the education sector.
Mr Korankye said checks by TEWU at the Labour Department revealed that the two breakaway groups - Tertiary Education Workers’ Union of Ghana (TEWUG) and Technical University Workers Association-Ghana (TUWAG) had not been granted any collective bargaining certificate.
He, therefore, wondered the legal basis of their claims to represent the interest of non-teaching staff in public and technical universities.
“Teachers and Educational Workers’ Union, TEWU of TUC –Ghana is the sole union with the collective agreement and bargaining certificate to negotiate with the government on behalf of junior staff, some senior staff, and senior members of public and technical universities in Ghana,” he said.
The press statement read by Mr Korankye was signed by 16 local unions of public and technical universities, including the University of Ghana (UG), Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), University of Cape Coast (UCC), University of Education, Winneba (UEW), the Accra Technical University and the Takoradi Technical University.
In 2022, some members of TEWU in public universities across the country broke away from the mother union and formed another group known as the Tertiary Education Workers’ Union of Ghana (TEWUG).
According to the new group, the conditions of service of members had remained the same for the past 14 years and accused TEWU of not doing enough to negotiate better conditions of service for members.
The Chairman of TEWUG, Sulemana Abdul Rahman, even alleged that the national leadership of TEWU went to negotiate with the government for some allowances due members to be cut off.
He, therefore, said the new association would better represent the interest of members in public universities.
Apart from claiming to negotiate on behalf of the members in public universities, the breakaway group also took over all the assets of TEWU in public universities.
Last year, the two - TEWUG and TUWAG merged to make them stronger in their resolve to better represent the interest of non-teaching staff in public and technical universities.
However, Mr Korankye insisted that despite the purported merger of the two groups, TEWU of TUC still represented the interest of non-teaching staff in public tertiary institutions, and still remained the only union clothed with the legal mandate to negotiate with the government.
While not questioning the formation of the two groups, Mr Korankye said it was important to put on record that the splinter groups had no mandate whatsoever to engage or negotiate with the government on behalf of workers.
