A labour relations expert, Kofi Davor has said workers of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) have no reason to agitate for a severance package if their terms and conditions remain the same or improve under the concession agreement of the Power Compact II arrangement.
According to him, severance payment is occasioned if the employment contract has been made worse off.
Under the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) agreement, the government will cede about 80 percent control in ECG in order to receive a cash injection of about one billion US dollars over a period of 5 years.
Workers ECG Wednesday who felt the deal could end their jobs with the company protested the planned acquisition and asked to be compensated using the labour laws to press home their demands.
But the Energy Minister, Mr Boakye Agyarko at a press conference rather gave them an ultimatum to either continue to work with the company or take their severance package and leave.
"If you decide to leave ECG, then you will be paid your severance, but you should not have the expectation or guarantee that the new company will take you on" he stated
Mr Davor offering his expert opinion on the matter on an Accra-based FM station explained that if the takeover or restructuring wasn't hostile then workers will be better off working under the new company instead of demanding for their entitled severance package.
"If your condition is made worse off then you will be entitled to a severance package but if your condition remains the same or improves then there will not be grounds for a severance package.
Again "If the new company takes over and chooses to retain all the employees of the company under the same terms and conditions or better then there will be no grounds to pay severance to any employee."
He, however, added that a worker could be a paid a severance package and still remain an employee but not under the same conditions because the new company will not be under any obligation to honour the old terms of employment.