The All Teachers Alliance Ghana (ATAG) says teacher unions should have rather pushed for a 15% salary increment instead of the 15% Cost of Living Allowance (COLA).
According to the union, such a move would have permanently improved teachers’ working conditions.
Speaking to Accra-based television, Citi television, the National President of the union, Isaac Ofori, says the government might use the payment of the 15% COLA as bait not to meet other necessary demands of teachers.
“What is the guarantee that after the government takes all the workers off the COLA, it is going to specifically maintain teachers on it? If teachers agree on a five or seven percent salary increment, it means that we have lost the negotiations.
“Teachers are one of the greatest tools used to demand the rights of workers in this country. So if we are activating the strike, we should do so on the back of something exclusive to us. Matters have now been generalized, and our concerns have been limited to organized labour,” Isaac Ofori lamented.
Already, the Deputy Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Bright Wireko Brobbey spoke on the possibility of the non-payment of the allowance in the future.
“We have agreed that the Cost of Living Allowance will be paid effective 1st July. As the name applies, it is an allowance which is a result of certain factors that have arisen in the year so as and when these factors are no longer there, there will not be the relevance to continue with it.”
The various worker unions declared an indefinite strike to demand a 20% cost of living allowance to help them cushion the current economic downturn.
However, the government reached a consensus with them for the payment of 15 percent of the allowance effective July 1, 2022.
