The Teachers and Educational Workers’ Union (TEWU) of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) in Ghana has announced an indefinite nationwide strike, effective Friday, September 19, 2025. They are taking this action due to the government’s neglect in reviewing their conditions of service for the past eight years.
In an interview on Eyewitness News on Thursday, September 18, 2025, TEWU’s General Secretary, King James Azortibah, explained that their conditions of service—which outline promotions, allowances, and other entitlements—have not been updated since 2018, despite the requirement for reviews every two years.
It is important to note that the conditions of service document includes terms of employment, disciplinary actions, promotions, progressive allowances, terminal benefit payments, and more. According to the Labour Act, this document is supposed to be reviewed annually.
“But for the purpose of convenience almost all the trade union bodies have adopted a two-year term for our conditions of service to be reviewed. In the case of the public tertiary university and technical university, their conditions of service expired since 2018,” he said. Mr. Azortibah stressed that years of negotiations with the New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration, including a previous indefinite strike, had yielded no results.
“We negotiated with the NPP government for eight years. Last November, we went on an indefinite strike like this one, and we were called back by the Labour Commission,” he recounted. In a statement signed by Mr. Azortibah, TEWU directed all members—including non-teaching staff of the Ghana Education Service (GES), public and technical universities, the Ghana Library Authority, and the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board—to stay at home until further notice.
Source: Isaac Appiah-Kubi
