Teacher unions call off strike after court order

The striking teacher unions have called off their industrial action after the National Labour Commission (NLC) secured a restraining order from the court against them on Friday November 11.

President of the Ghana National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) Angel Carbonou told journalists on Friday November 11 that “we can’t disrespect the court order. To that end, we are telling all our members to resume work on Monday. Every teacher should go to work on Monday.”

He stressed “We are law abiding citizens, we have decided to obey the orders of the court and have asked our members to call off the strike and to go back to the classrooms, and also ensure that the directive that the Labour Commission is giving that we engage the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relation and report to the Labour Commission on the 16th on the issues that led to the strike in the first place, we are determined to do that in our engagement with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Education.”

The NLC dragged NAGRAT, the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) and the Coalition of Concerned Teachers (CCT) to court for failing to heed its order to return to the classrooms while their discussions with the government on what caused their industrial action go on.

On Monday November 7 the leadership of the unions asked their members to continue staying at home because their meeting with the government ended inconclusively.

President of the GNAT, Rev Isaac Owusu said after the first day of the meeting on Monday November 7 that “I can tell you on authority that so far so good we have had a very constructive meeting. The parties have agreed to adjourn and resume tomorrow 2PM to continue with the deliberations.

“We have not ended the meeting, the agreement here is that the two parties have agreed that we should adjourn and resume tomorrow 2PM.”

The Labour Court 2, presided over by Justice Ananda Aikins, gave its ruling on the matter and asked them to return to the classroom.

GNAT, NAGRAT and CCT declared strike over the appointment of Dr Eric Nkansah as the new Director General of the Ghana Education (GES).

They declared the industrial action on Friday November 4.

Source: 3news.com|Ghana