Address our concerns --GIL workers

Accra, April 22, GNA - Teachers and non-teaching staff of the Ghana Institute of Languages have in a joint resolution called on their management to do every thing possible to ensure that negotiations on the review of their collective bargaining commences without further delay. They threatened that if by Tuesday, May 2, 2006, nothing had been done about this and other concerns, "we will deem it fit to advice ourselves."

The group who are members of the Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU) of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) said since 1992 they have not succeeded in their efforts to get the review effected. The resolution passed at the end of a meeting held on Friday, also called on management to make public the findings of the fact-finding committee report on the Institute.

They called for the reinstatement of "all members of staff, both academic and non-academic staff, who were unjustifiably dismissed and the clarification of the status of the Academic board, vis-=E0-vis the management committee and the Interim Management Committee." Conflicting directives put them into confusion, they added. Accordingly, the workers said immediate steps should be taken to improve the administration of the institute, teaching and learning facilities.

The workers said, all unjustifiable salaries and allowances being paid to certain officers be stopped immediately. Speaking to the Ghana News Agency in an interview, Madam Jessie Amable, Secretary of the union said there is no legal basis for management to take new salaries and allowances when no new Collective Bargaining Agreement is in force to enforce such payments. She said Management are also taking fuel allowance not approved under any new CBA.