Book n research allowance introduced in 1986, de law establishing such an allowance opens up for de employer to vary de modalities in its payment or otherwise...its not salary dat shud be establish...A deviation from its target as snr staff members were equally taking de same amt as lecturers wen indeed dey r not directly linked to academics, meaning dey dont undertake any research or buy books to extract info to teach. ..Its always paid at de end of every academic yr, so POTAG declaration was prematured...a very relevant qsn to ask, y is POTAG on strike while UTAG isnt wen de two bodies r under de same category of beneficiaries of de said allowance? Now, govt announced settn up de fund in order to re-focus on de target group...upon dis announcement neither POTAG nor UTAG raised any preliminary objections. in Feb 2013 a committee was set up to work on dis new policy which seeks not to take away anything from de lecturers but vary de modalities of accessing de fund. It was agreed btwn govt and de unions dat last yr was gona be de last time de allowance wl be paid in its old form...de unions agreed but proposed to govt to maintained de status quo but set a separate fund as de research fund jx so dey cud draw from dat source too anytime dey wish...dis position govt refused cuz dat wud hv amounted to double counting in economic terms... Now reasons y de strike was stretched to dis far.. NLC in all de negotiations wit de two unions by ministry was a part n a legitimate stakeholder in dat regard...now upon declaring de strike, NLC assessed de issues as presented b4 it by de ministry n subsequently declared de strike illegal n further dragged POTAG to de human rights court..issues b4 de court r not to meddled in...but in a covert way of getting de issues resolved, de ministry still persisted n invited POTAG for a monthly mtg de minister organises wit de unions. .POTAG all dis while took an entrenched position n never wanted to come to de negotiation table. In march dis yr, de ministry conveyed a mtg wit de unions n fare wages to discuss issues from pension to salary incremental arrears...de issue of de bk n res allowance came up...fare wages as de body enjoined by law to negotiate all Labour issues on behalf of govt made it clear to de unions dat, if even de said allowance was to be maintained its to categorized under category 2 allowances which r yet to be negotiated. In Feb dis yr UTAG sent a letter to NLC complaining abt de payment, in March dey threatened a strike, in April, NLC directed for a dialogue wit de ministry..in April de ministry met to dialogue. ..de mins met UTAG n POTAG to sign a declaration on de 23rd April precisely, UTAG did except POTAG. Due to dis NLC directed de min to go into arbitration, two days after dis mtg POTAG declared de strike, de reason y de strike was declared illegal by NLC. On de 30th of June, a mtg was conveyed by de min n POTAG to prevail upon POTAG to call of de strike while negotiations r ongoing but de response was wen dey wl be paid dia money n nothing else... Now to cut a long story short, de position of govt is simple...de fund has already bn set wit a seed capital of 15 million Gh, now de unions r to sign an undertaking which wl propel govt to pay using de old method, while working on de fund to kick start nx academic yr which POTAG is dodging..in dis mtg was de dep minister of finance Ato Forson who is also a member of de education committee in parliament. Der r a lot of issues I cudnt state cuz Im jx writing dis from my head, so pls bear wit me wit de omissions, spelling mistakes, grammatical errors n de rest..u can ask ur qsns while we debate dis out..
Posted on: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 22:11:45 +0000