Executive Secretary of Coalition Against Leadership of TUC and Organized Labour, Azubila Emmanuel Abdul-Salam, has expressed disappointment in public sector union leaders in the country, insisting they have failed workers they represent.

According to him, union leaders, particularly those who represented workers at a tripartite meeting to deliberate on salary increment last year failed to negotiate favourably for workers.

Following the Speaker’s comments on the floor of parliament which revealed that government may not be able to pay salaries in the next three months, owing to information at his disposal, Mr Abdul-Salam indicated that although there isn’t an official communique in that regard, there has been threats to suggest that is the situation on the ground.

“During the salary negotiation at the tripartite committee, one of the directives that they gave was that they are going to lay workers off if the union leaders fail to accept the 4% and 7% salary increment… We have not heard anything officially but it is not new to us because as I indicated we have received several threats against our salaries this year and this is what government is implementing. We believe that our union leaders have failed workers in this country. Because going to tripartite committee to accept the inhumane salary increment of 4% and 7%, that one alone was an insult using COVID-19 as basis”.
Azubila Emmanuel Abdul-Salam

Mr Abdul-Salam intimated that following the negotiation with government last year, workers were threatened again on the premise that they might lose out on salary payments due them if they don’t have a GhanaCard. He expressed that they “demonstrated and with the help of the media, they reversed that decision”.

“When they sent the e-levy to parliament, the first thing that we heard was if they fail to approve the e-levy, workers were not going to be paid in 2022. Now, we are hearing it from the Speaker that he has been briefed that workers will not be paid the next three months if they fail to pass this e-levy. We are saying that this is very disrespectful to workers in this country”.
Azubila Emmanuel Abdul-Salam

Addressing issues of salary increment

To address the situation, Mr Abdul-Salam suggested that government must look inward by cutting back on the huge “sums of money” that some government officials and Article 71 office holders receive.

“Their fuel allowance alone is our annual salary. Why can’t they threaten themselves? They should threaten the MPs that they wouldn’t fuel their cars to parliament if they fail to pass the e-levy. They should cut down … I think almost $488 million allocated to the presidency; there alone as budgetary allocation to the President. If they cut some of these things and reduce the Article 71 office holders salary from the 79% that they increased last year, I think we wouldn’t be talking about workers salaries not being paid in the next three months…”
Azubila Emmanuel Abdul-Salam

The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, in his address to parliament on February 24, 2022, explained that the possible inability of government to pay salaries for the next three month should not “discourage the committees from doing their work”.

“So, we have to take leadership seriously. We have to do a lot of things”.
Mr Alban Bagbin

The Speaker’s concerns were raised amid labour agitations for better conditions of service as well as rising costs of living, even as the government struggles to get through the contentious Electronic Transaction Levy (E-levy) bill passed.