Are Thomas Musah and Angel Carbonu labour experts, COLA strike is just an exercise in futility

Teachers' strike over COLA has entered into day eight (8) and tensions are high as to whether the government is willing to grant the request or not. Union leaders are hesitant to call off the strike and are hoping that the government will do the needful.

On the 8th of July, the government reached an inconclusive meeting with the teacher union leaders and on the 12th of July another meeting came on but not without drama. The media widely reported that the government was unwilling to start negotiations with teachers because their leaders had failed to call off the strike.

According to the government, the labour act requires that the aggrieved party called off the strike before any proper engagement can commence. On the backdrop of trust, the union leaders had failed to call off the strike fearing the government might ambush them during the negotiation. The dilemma now confronts the GNAT, NAGRAT and TEWU either to call off the strike to enable the government to negotiate with them or not. Organized labour’s engagement with the government subsequently had been hijacked by this development and it seems the government is already hatching ‘plan B’ to unleash on the striking teachers. According to development, the government is trying to engage Trade Union Congress in general claiming all workers are affected by the current hardship making the teachers’ strike somehow needless.

The potency of the COLA strike is about to be neutralized once organized labour had been drawn into the whole matter. Intriguingly, Thomas Musa of GNAT and arrogant Angel Carbonu of NAGRAT could not read the ‘atmosphere’ very well and hastily jumped into a fantasy declaration of strike knowing very well that the COLA matters are not exclusive to teachers. It seems the trio are after a certain outcome no one knows about. Unfortunately, teachers have fallen for the antics of these two darling “BOYS” not knowing their real agenda.

Teachers must understand that these trio, MUSA and CARBONU, are not labour experts neither are they lawyers and do not possess any form of technicality that can conjure better negotiation skills for better bargaining. They are ‘CHOOOIBOOI’ men who only understand one language ‘Walk out if it is not granted’. These are the elements teachers in Ghana are trying to repost trust in them to fight on their behalf. On the face of the law, Musa and Carbonu should know that the COLA strike was dead from birth and labour experts are asking if GNAT and NAGRAT meant well for their members. Time is fast approaching for the next Tripartite Committee to meet on salary increment and any well-meaning individual will be shocked by the posture of these two union leaders.

Negotiation is a serious business and it is unfortunate teacher unions with all the resources and the capacity cannot hire high profiled experts to lead them to battle the government for better conditions and salaries.

Eventually, this COLA strike will become one of the Feeble Strikes teachers have been experiencing in decades and nothing profitable emerges from them. Between 2014 – 2022, teacher unions have declared not less than eight (8) indefinite strikes and none of them had yielded potential results in relieving teachers of their meagre living in this country.

In conclusion, this latest COLA strike is just another routine union exercise activated to appease members rather than fighting for them. Teachers, do not have short memories. This your union leaders are mere institutional heads who are in themselves politicians doing the biddings of the invisible masters.

Thomas Musah and Angel Carbonu are not labour experts and no teacher should trust them to achieve any meaningful results in negotiating with the government. This is how our union leaders handle teachers' matters from time immemorial and this is where teachers have come to.