Mortuary Workers Temporarily Suspend Strike, Give Government Two-Week Ultimatum To Meet Demands

• The Mortuary Workers Association of Ghana (MOWAG) has given the government a two-week ultimatum to address its grievances
• In the meantime, the association has temporarily suspended its strike and opened mortuaries for families coming for their deceased relatives
• The mortuary workers declared the strike, citing poor working conditions, among other reasons

The Mortuary Workers Association of Ghana (MOWAG) has temporarily suspended its indefinite strike action.

The association commenced a strike on Thursday, September 26, 2024, citing poor working conditions, among other reasons.

The strike had left mortuaries nationwide shut down and without attendants, inconveniencing families that had come to retrieve the corpses of their loved ones for burial.

The mortuary workers stated that they are giving the government a two-week ultimatum to address their demands.

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They said the ultimatum would end on October 10, 2024, and if the government had not made any attempt to meet their demands by then, they would lay down their tools without prior notice.

The MOWAG General Secretary, Richard Kofi Jordan, stated that the association's demands are straightforward and would not significantly affect the economy or national budget if implemented.

Why MOWAG is on strike

MOWAG, in their press statement, raised concern about the alarming rate of recorded deaths of mortuary workers in recent times, with 16 workers said to have died so far in 2024.

The organisation linked these deaths to the government's failure to adequately provide them with personal protective equipment, exposing staff to diseases and other health hazards while handling corpses.

MOWAG also noted that their members had not been paid their salaries since 2020, and the government had failed to approve financial clearance to employ an additional 500 mortuary workers despite hospitals nationwide being short of staff.

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MOWAG claimed that the government had also failed to pay mortuary workers their COVID-19 bonuses as President Nana Akufo-Addo promised.

TUSAAG commences nationwide strike

YEN.com.gh reported that the Technical University Senior Administrators Association of Ghana (TUSAAG) has announced a nationwide strike effective Friday, September 27, 2024.

The union claimed the government had failed to meet its obligations under the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).

Consequently, the union has threatened to withdraw all services across all technical universities in the country until their demands are met.

In a statement, the union said it had gone beyond a period of dialogue and expressed frustration over the failure to honour its terms of service.

TUSAAG complained that the government had refused to implement revised allowances for senior members of public universities as directed by the Ministry of Finance in May 2024.

Source: YEN.com.gh