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SUMMARY AND RESPONSE OF TUC AND ORGANIZED LABOUR PRESS STATEMENT

In Dr. Anthony Baah’s press statement yesterday, he started by mentioning 21 Labour Unions under TUC and Organized labour.

He told you that General Secretaries, Presidents, Chairpersons and leaders of Organized labour groups were all present and backing his decision.

He tried to cover up his imposition of the 4% salary on his union leaders and portrayed as if he met with all these labour unions and they gave him their consent to accept the 4% salary increment.

Public Service Workers Union on the 21st September 2021 just last week Petitioned this same TUC Secretary General, Dr. Yaw Anthony Baah.

The following were their concerns:

  1. The leadership of TUC and Organized labour should constantly engage their constituents on unfolding events at the negotiation table in order to renew their mandate on the way forward and should therefore be more strategic in future negotiations.
  2. The outcome of your negotiation was regarded as unsatisfactory and further worsened by the inability for the base pay to commensurate with the percentage increment in the minimum wage for the same period and the outrageous emoluments of article 71 office holders.
  3. Organized labour should in the interim fashion out mitigation measures against the constant erosion of the real value of wages.
  4. TUC should work with appropriate stake holders to undertake the industrial action to press home the demand for an improved deal if all other efforts for renegotiation fails.

Did TUC take into consideration the purchasing power of public sector workers, with a realization that if they are overstretched financially most businesses in the country become stagnant?

1) Has the TUC and Organized labour considered the high Taxes, the high fuel prices, high transportation fares before accepting the 4% base pay rise?

2) Are the Public Sector Workers of Ghana different from the Article 71 Office Holders who don’t pay utilities, buy fuel, maintain their Vehicles, pay for rent and are also having chains of Allowances, why have they increased the salaries of the President and his vice 79%, Ministers have over 50%, and so on❓

THE TUC & ORGANIZED LABOUR CLAIMS.

TUC CLAIMED THE FACTORS CONSIDERED IN DETERMINING MINIMUM WAGE INCLUDES:

  1. The needs of workers and their families.
  2. General level of wages in the country.
  3. Cost of living.
  4. SSNIT benefits.
  5. Living standard of other social groups.

ECONOMIC FACTORS:

  1. The requirement of Economic Development
  2. Level of productivity.
  3. Attainment of a high level of employment.

The National Tripartite Committee relies on recommendations of the Technical sub-committee who chairs, the Government, employers and Unions.

COVID-19 LOCKDOWN :

The survey shows 35.7% of businesses closed down during that period. 24% came back after lockdown.

16.1% continue to be closed. (Is because of restrictions on pubs, beaches, drinking sports, private schools etc).

Estimated possible decline of 24% and 15% reduction in employment in the worst-case scenario. (Reduction of purchasing power by workers).

Cost of Living Allowance (Cola) because of dumsor in 2014 was 10% and 2015 3% top-up making 13%.

Is TUC telling us there is now no high cost of living due to covid 19?

If dumsor and over-taxation was the reason for 10% cola in 2014 then workers today need over 20% cola due to the unbearable high cost of Living.

Workers today have been burdened with high taxation even paying Covid-19 tax, garbage tax and other six different taxes for this year alone.

1) Has the TUC and Organized labour considered the high Taxes, the high fuel prices, high transportation fares, high cost of goods and services before accepting the 4% base pay rise?

2) Are the Public Sector Workers of Ghana living in a different country from the Article 71 Office Holders who don’t pay utilities, buy fuel, maintain their Vehicles, pay for rent and are also having chains of Allowances?

Why have they increased the salaries of the President and his vice over 60%, Ministers, council of state members, MPs have over 50% and so on❓

TUC CLAIMED REASONS :

  1. They accepted 4% so that workers shall not be declared redundant.
  2. No Freezing of employment (Government to employ 1 million youth for next three years).
  3. Workers will be vaccinated.
  4. Payment of SSNIT.

Dr. Anthony Yaw Baah and his Team run away from Retrenchment and coil back to talk about redundancy after our Coalition exposed them that there’s nothing like retrenchment in our Labour law.

WHAT IS RETRENCHMENT?

Retrenchment usually involves a reduction of the workforce due to an economic downturn.

WHAT IS REDUNDANCY?

Redundancy involves a reduction of positions as a result of a number of factors, including restructuring due to an economic downturn or due to technological reasons.

The biggest difference between the two is that retrenchment targets people, whilst redundancy targets positions.

A person cannot be declared redundant but a position which a person is holding can be declared vacant.

A SURVEY COMMISSIONED BY INTERNATIONAL GROWTH CENTER AND WAS CONDUCTED BY INSTITUTE OF STATISTICAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC RESEARCH, HEADED BY DR. CHARLES ACKAH.

885 SMEs lost GH¢250m within a four-year ‘dumsor’ period. Date: Aug – 24 – 2017, 10:05 BY: Daily Graphic.

Dr Charles Ackah, Head of Economics Division and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), making a presentation. Picture: Maxwell Ocloo.

Dr Charles Ackah, Head of Economics Division and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), making a presentation. Picture: Maxwell Ocloo

A study on the impact of the four-year power crisis that hit Ghana has established that 885 small and medium-sized manufacturing firms in Accra, Tema, Kumasi and Sekondi-Takoradi lost GH¢250 million within the period.

Additionally, the power outages, to a large extent, led to a 10 per cent fall in monthly productivity of those firms, with as many as 55 of such businesses folding up in the four locations of the country.

FINDINGS :

Presenting the results of the study in a workshop at the University of Ghana, Legon, on Wednesday, a Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) of the university, Dr Charles Ackah, said one extra day of outages each month resulted in about one per cent reduction in labour and productivity.

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