The Tertiary Education Workers Union of Ghana (TEWU-GH) leadership at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology has issued a stern warning to any authority opposing the strike set to commence on Thursday, February 1, 2024.

Their demands align with those of the Senior Staff Association and the University Administrators, currently in their third week of striking against directives threatening their conditions of service.

The impending strike is expected to impact crucial frontline operations, including the management of sanitation, security, hospital facilities, fire stations, and other academic support services across public university campuses nationwide.

Already, facilities such as University Basic Schools have been closed as approximately ten thousand workers on the university labor front lay down their tools.

Charles Arthur, the local chairman of TEWU at KNUST, leading around 800 workers, affirmed their unwavering commitment to ensuring no university authority obstructs the industrial action.

He alleged that certain heads of faculty and university managers were covertly enlisting striking staff and other workers to perform the duties abandoned by the protesting workers.

“We are advising the university management to respect this strike. We don’t want any situation where any university management will use power. If any university management uses any power, we will disturb that power".

Section 170 of the Labor Act clearly says that the employer may not temporarily replace labour when we are on lawful strike. We think that this is a law passed by the parliament of Ghana and it will be accordingly adhered to,” he cautioned.

In addition to demanding the withdrawal of a directive from the Ghana Technical Education Council to suspend overtime and extra duty allowances, TEWU-GH is pressing for the government to pay 9 months of their tier-two pensions to their fund managers.

Furthermore, TEWU-GH is urging the government to harmonize a vehicle maintenance allowance, which they argue is riddled with discriminatory bottlenecks.

According to the union, their conditions of service stipulate that each staff member should receive a vehicle maintenance allowance based on whether they use a car, motorbike, or bicycle. However, some university managers allegedly opt to grant motorbike allowances to staff members, even when they have provided documents proving ownership of a car.

Announcing the strike on the KNUST campus on behalf of the National Executive Council of TEWU-GH, the national chairman, Suleman Abdul Rahman, emphasized that the union is prepared to engage in negotiations for the benefit of its members' conditions of service.