On February 15, this year, the Labour Division of the Accra High Court put an injunction on the strike by the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) embarked upon from the beginning of the year and thus had then travelled 36 days.
The order that followed an application for interlocutory injunction filed by the National Labour Commission(NLC) meant that the UTAG must call off the strike and go back to the lecture halls.
It must, however, be noted that the court did not grant two applications filed by the NLC for an order to compel the UTAG to call off the strike over conditions of service and payment of allowances; rather it urged the parties to settle the case out of court.
Then on February 17, it was on air that UTAG had called off its six-week industrial action after a meeting with the Education and Labour Ministers facilitated by the Education Committee of Parliament.
That gave the public the impression that lectures could begin on February 21(today).
This piece of news brought a lot of relief to students and parents as they thought their worries had been ended.
In fact, students on campus who were contemplating leaving for home rescinded their decision, while those already at home decided to return to campus, with freshmen who had not stepped foot on campus rejoicing at the news for the life they were going to experience on campus.
However, all the hopes were dashed and rejoicing curtailed on Saturday, whenProf Solomon Nunoo, the president of UTAG, categorically said on a radio station that the lecturers were not returning to campus on Monday (today).
He maintained that the union would have to meet to evaluate the request to call off the strike and return to the negotiating table and see if that request would receive a favourable response from UTAG members or not.
The twists and turns of the UTAG strike has psychological and other negative ramifications for students and their parents but worst for the students as there seems to be no end to the strike soon.
The Ghanaian Times hopes the current strike would not be like the one which happened in 1994 that ran for a whole academic year with no graduations in 1995 on public university campuses.
That affected, for instance, the career dream of some students such as those who grew past the age threshold for entering the security organisations and derailed the plans of others for further education, marriage, travelling abroad and what have you.
So far parents have paid huge sums for fees and hostels and the time is running without any productive use made of these payments. Does anyone care about this?
There is only one theme that causes UTAG to go no strike every year – poor conditions of service.
It is sad to say that the political establishment adopts the same attitude towards the UTAG strike every year forgetting that “he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day”.
One wonders why the government cannot put in place a strategy to resolve the UTAG grievances in a way that the UTAG members would have confidence in the establishment so that even if new problems arise due to changing times, there would be trust from the UTAG end that they would not be ‘fleeced’.
On their part, UTAG members know they stand to lose nothing if they embark on indefinite strike because there is no information on record that once upon the time UTAG went on strike beyond a certain length of time and were denied their salaries or some privileges. The Ghanaian Times stands to be corrected.
It is about time UTAG and the government did the needful for students to start the 2022/23 academic year so that the public would not conclude that both parties are insensitive to the plight of the students and their parents and guardians.