COLA Strike: Entrenched positions always ruin negotiations – Lecturer

Senior lecturer at the Accra Technical University, Dr. Daniel Osabutey, has said that he wasn’t surprised after the Teacher Unions walked out of a meeting with government officials over their demand for Cost of Living Allowance (COLA).

Representatives of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) and the National Graduate Association of Teachers (NAGRAT) staged a walk during negotiations with the government over their demand for Cost of Living Allowance (COLA).

The two associations accused the government of betrayal of trust for asking them to call off their strike before negotiations.

“By indicating and asking us to call off our strike before negotiations begin, what it means is that the government side is not ready to continue negotiations unless the teacher unions call off the strike. They have held all organized labour hostage, this is a betrayal of trust.

“Right now since we are undesirable before they even walk us out of the meeting, we are walking out of the meeting ourselves,” NAGRAT President, Angel Carbonu told the media on Tuesday.

Dr Daniel Osabutey in an interview with Sefah Danquah on eTV Ghana’s “Fact Sheet” shared that it was ill-advised for the government officials to demand a strike call-off before discussions began.

“It wasn’t the teacher unions that decided to walk out because anytime you’re going into any form of negotiation you don’t take an entrenched position. At least I expected each party involved in the negotiations to have taken some kind of relaxed position. But if you listen to the reps of the teacher unions, it was like the government was forcing them to call off the strike before they enter into any negotiations with them and we don’t do that in negotiations,” he said

He further indicated that the Teacher Union was right to avoid the pressure from the government to call off the strike before the negotiations will be initiated.

“I wasn’t surprised because if they had succumbed to that particular pressure, I’m sure members won’t have forgiven them. Members were not expecting their leaders to go into negotiations and call of the strike when the substantive issue has not been tabled. One thing about negotiations is that you’re going with a reason and they should be very attainable. You should be able to convince the other party why you deserve that percentage,” he added.