You can’t negotiate while on strike – FWSC

Mr Earl Ankrah, Acting Director, Research, Monitoring, Evaluation and Head of Public Affairs, Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC), says workers cannot negotiate conditions of service while on strike.

“The law says you cannot negotiate at the National Labour Commission while on strike,” he said in an interview with the Ghana News Agency on agitations by worker unions over conditions of service.

He said demands by employees must be consistent with what they were entitled to.

“You can only insist on issues that you have negotiated, issues that are contained in your conditions of service, when you have not been promised anything, you cannot get up and demand it,” he explained.

The University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) last week embarked on industrial action to demand ‘better conditions of service.

The National Labour Commission, after meeting UTAG and the other stakeholders, including the Government over the strike, directed UTAG to call it off and resume work.

The NLC asked UTAG to formally submit “the other issues in dispute to the employer for redress for the parties to negotiate on them and report back to the Commission after one month, that is 16th February, 2022.”