Colleges of Education Teachers Association Resume Nationwide Strike

The Colleges of Education Teachers Association have resumed its nationwide strike. The decision to resume the suspended strike action followed the latest meeting between the Government Team and CETAG ON 4th January 2023. The meeting was to thrash out outstanding issues of CETAG.

Based on the outcome of the said meeting, the National Council of CETAG has resolved to resume the strike action which was suspended on 17th December 2022 on Friday 6th January 2023. It added that if the outstanding issues are not resolved by the Minister, the resumption of the strike action will take effect.

According to CETAG, the reasons for the resumption of the strike action are as follows.

#1. All the outstanding issues in the communiqué signed on 16th December 2022 which the Hon. Minister Promised to resolve within two weeks after the suspension of the strike remains unresolved to date.

#2. The FWSC never took steps to seek financial mandate from the Finance Ministry for the three outstanding generic allowances as promised at the meeting held on 21st December 2022 at the Ministry of Education which was chaired by the Director, Tertiary at the Ministry.

#3. The effective state of January 2023 which the Government Team wants to unilaterally impose on CETAG instead of the mutually effective date of January 2022 is totally unacceptable. Council unanimously rejects it and demands for the original and mutually agreed effective date of January 2022 for CETAG’s 2021 Conditions of Service, which the parties settled on at the beginning of the negotiations in August 2021.

#4. CETAG can no longer trust the assurance given by the stakeholders to seek further financial mandate for the three outstanding generic allowances since all previous assurances were never fulfilled.

#5. GTEC has failed to disclose to CETAG members it has proposed to be paid as all-year-round work compensation, as well as the time the payment shall be made.

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Conclusively, Council wishes to inform CETAG members across the 46 public colleges of education that the resumption of the suspended strike action is imminent, as the stakeholders have not attached the needed seriousness to CETAG’S CoS concerns for over two years now.