The Trade Union Congress, TUC, has blamed the International Monetary Fund, IMF, for the poor condition of service of most Ghanaian workers.
Secretary-General of TUC, Dr Yaw Baah in an interview with Joy FM on May Day said the IMF has over the years forced successive governments to implement policies that are not favourable to the Ghanaian worker.
"Since 1984 when Ghana went to IMF, IMF make sure that we have a new law and that new law is supposed to be friendly to free market, all these institutions that are supposed to be resourced to monitor conditions of service and conditions of work in enterprises across the country were denied the resources to do that, you can see the labour department which used to help people to get jobs can no longer do that why? they have no budget if you look at their budget it's nothing even the ministry of employment at some point, Minister of employment was not a cabinet minister, is not by chance, you see it's a whole design thing to make sure that they treat labour as commodity, they treat the labour market as if it's a commodity market that is what IMF wants, but thank God we already have some benchmarks that they could not dismantle and one of them is the strong trade unions in this country which protects the interest of workers, people may not see it but usually when you have something you don't see the value until you throw it away, if there were no unions our conditions will be worse.."
Mortuary workers to strike on May 2
Mortuary Workers Association of Ghana, MOWAG, has served notice they will embark on a nationwide strike on May 2, 2019.
In a letter to the National Labour Commission, NLC, sighted by Prime News, the Mortuary workers said " it is abundantly convincing, morally and legally justifiable that our employer, the Ministry of Health has no intention to address our impasse with all seriousness since it has employed a myriad of tactics including delaying antics since November 6, 2018, and not even when we had embarked upon an industrial action to urge expedition of our impasse."
"We, therefore, have no option than to once again resort to industrial nationwide strike action on Thursday 2nd May 2019 if we do not hear from them by 30th April 2019 hence this notice as in section 159 of ACT 651."
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Review Tema Port expansion project contract – TUC to gov’t
The Trades Union Congress is appealing to President Nana Akufo-Addo to intervene, as a matter of urgency, to ensure that the contract between Ghana government and Meridian Port Services (MPS) is reviewed.
The TUC estimates that the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) alone may sack about 1,400 workers in 2019 as a result of MPS monopoly at the Tema Port. It said aside massive job losses, GPHA will surely lose millions of US dollars in revenue, in addition to over US$800 million granted to MPS in tax concessions if the contract is not reviewed and MPS commences operation in the new terminal in June 2019.
Ghana government signed a 35-year contract with MPS in 2015 which allows MPS to effectively monopolise the activities at the Tema Port.
According to the TUC, the contract was awarded to MPS without going through a competitive bidding process.