TEWU Wants Better Living Standards For Members

The General Secretary of Teachers and Educational Workers’ Union (TEWU), Augustine Saakuur Karbo, decries the unfair treatment and discrimination against its members by proposing harmonious ways to engage government in order to improve the living standards of the over 40,000 members in the country.

Speaking at a news conference in Accra, Mr. Karbo said the situation of providing critical support to some selected members of the GES staff excluding others is unacceptable and creating disaffection among its members.

He noted that the conditions of service for their members in the GES has long expired and therefore requires that the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission and all the stakeholders bring finality to the process of the review in order to have a revised condition of service for their members.

The General Secretary indicated that most teachers who are sponsored to undertake further studies and on their return, instead of going back to the classrooms to teach, apply for/or are allowed into offices to perform functions which should be performed by the non-teaching staff.

“Why should teachers for core subjects like Mathematics, English, Social Studies, Integrated Science, etc. leave the classrooms and take up duties in the Metropolitan, Municipal, District, and Regional Education Offices as Human Resource or Personnel Officers whiles non-teaching staff in administration with qualifications such as first degrees and master degrees in Human Resource Management and Public Administration are put in Registries to pick files,” he posited.

Mr. Karbocalled on Government to take necessary steps to reverse this trend to get teachers back into the classrooms and allow their members (non-teaching personnel) perform their administrative functions.

According to him, his outfit takes strong exception to the development at the Colleges of Education regarding the post-migration issues which is bringing disparity between the teaching and non-teaching staff placement on the single spine salary structure.

“We are worried about this trend of affairs and hope the Committee of Principals of the Colleges of Education will take steps to have this matter resolved and resolved urgently. We wish to state unequivocally that not all workers within the Colleges of Education are happy with the migration issues and we are ready to engage Management and all stakeholders to tackle the issue,” he intimated.

The General Secretary said they are also not happy that the Conditions of service of the Public Universities including that of the Technical Universities have expired variously from 2006 to 2008 and up till date they have not been reviewed.

“We are pleased with the fact that Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) has initiated the process of reviewing these expired conditions of service. Due to some technical challenges, the process did not end last year. We trust that in this year 2018, by the end of the 1^st quarter, as has been proposed by the FWSC all efforts will be made by the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and various Councils to ensure that we continue and conclude negotiations on the Conditions of Service for our members,” he stated.

Mr. Karbo lauded Government’s Free SHS policy but he, however, indicated that the worrying signs will not prevent them from expressing their concerns regarding inadequate staff and structural challenges to meet the large intake of students.

He added that most matrons are doing their very best under trying and sometimes deplorable conditions to get food for the students.

Mr. Karbo said the smoke and heat from the fuelwood can pose lots of health challenges to these matrons and therefore urged Government, Management, and other stakeholders to take critical steps to improve the conditions for matrons and their staff to continue to give off their best in serving mother Ghana.

In spite of these challenges, the General Secretary noted that their national leadership is taking steps to support their members with soft loans through the TEWU fund to enable them to meet their financial needs in terms of helping their children go to school, pay medical bills and other general expenses.