State Attorneys will resume work today [Monday] after almost three months of strike.
They declared a strike in October 2016 to protest against government’s failure to meet their demands for improved conditions of service.
According to the Attorneys, President’s personal intervention in the matter and his assurance that their concerns will be address informed their decision to call off the strike.
The Minister of Justice and Attorney General nominee, Gloria Akuffo at her vetting over the weekend confirmed that President Akufo-Addo had intervened and persuaded the Attorneys to resume work.
She said, “the President himself has intervened in the matter and has succeeded in persuading them to go back to work. I spoke with their national president and she assured me they will be reporting, God willing, on Monday…it [the Tuesday meeting] will come on because we have to look for not only immediate and medium term solutions but also long-term solutions. This will require the intervention of all the stakeholders; the attorneys, and it has to do with money, so maybe the fair wages commission and Ministry of Finance.”
Francisca Tetteh-Mensah, the National President of the State Attorneys Association, in an interview with Citi News said the association had received a letter from Nana Akufo-Addo confirming his readiness to address their concerns.
“With the coming of a new government we requested a meeting with the President and he granted us this meeting. We explained everything to him and he told us that being a former Attorney General and Lawyer, he respects the law and will make sure it is enforced.”
“We asked him for a written and he has given us this written commitment and that is why we are resuming. We are calling off the strike,” she said.
The Association of State Attorneys declared a strike in October 2016, in protest of government’s failure to meet its demand for improved conditions of service.
Several efforts to get them to return to work have proved futile.
The Attorney-General’s office described the strike as illegal, and further directed the State Attorneys to return to work by Tuesday, January 3, 2017, or be “considered as having vacated post.”
The Association of State Attorneys, however, insisted their strike is legal, noting that it was pursuant to a statutory notice under Section 159 (b) of Act 651.
The attorneys also blamed the National Labour Commission for the impasse, explaining that the Commission should have gone to the High Court to compel government to improve their conditions of service.
The reliefs that were being sought by State Attorneys are:
* And illegal revision of conditions of service for state attorneys
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(Via: CitiFM Online Ghana)