General Secretary of the Public Service Workers Union (PSWU), Bernard Adjei, has revealed that government has been unfair to public sector workers in the country.

Mr Adjei noted that the Union feels compelled to make its intention known to government on the need to equally include its members in the neutrality allowance being demanded by CLOGSAG. He indicated that the union also demands fresh negotiations as the employees of some 36 state agencies have been neglected.

The General Secretary of the Union indicated that apart from ensuring that there’s “equal pay for equal work of value” as prescribed by the laws, another leg of the policy which is to make sure the policy works very well was the harmonisation of certain allowances in the public sector.

“The letter has been very clear in what we are requesting. The issue about fairness, we will say that state or government for that matter has rather been unfair to some public sector workers. Now, when we started the single spine, the assent of the single spine was to resolve certain critical issues in public sector salary administrations… We’ve been trying to do that for over ten years now and it’s rather unfortunate that the state or for that matter, government and institutions that are taxed to ensure that we observe these things are taking decisions and embarking on actions that may be bringing back some of these challenges that we’ve been trying to resolve in the sector.”
Bernard Adjei

Mr Adjei stated that institutions such as the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission can help iron out the demands of the Union. He emphasized that the country has a pay policy and has been trying to live with the principles of the policy. By virtue of this, he urged government and necessary stakeholders to ensure fairness is achieved.

“So, all we are saying is that if for the sake of the work that a group of public sector workers are doing they deserve some allowance, then per the principles of the policy you’d have to know and understand that it is not only the group of workers that deserve to benefit from even the principle of harmonised allowance.”
Bernard Adjei

PSWU demands better negotiations from government

Mr Adjei iterated that the fate of PSWU members is being neglected by government on neutrality allowances after failed attempts to heed to its plea following several engagements. He explained that it is imperative government resolves the gap.

“We expected also the policy maker to ensure that I have several public sector workers under my ambit and if there’s something such as this – political neutrality, we know that it is not only this section of public sector workers or civil servants that are entitled to this or that are required as has been explained to us that this allowance is being given for the fact that either the act or the work of these people are such that they are not required to engage in certain political activity and therefore require to be neutral that was what we heard.”
Bernard Adjei

This mattert, Mr Adjei revealed, didn’t just come up as it has been in the “offing” for some time and at a point, the Union sought to establish contacts and speak to people in authority to understand what was going on. He noted that the Union made it clear in its informal engagements and other engagements that this neutrality allowance that “we have heard going on, if we really want to pay or the state is ready to pay an allowance like neutrality allowance and the reasons that have been given, then there are other public service workers that should be considered.”

“Of course, CLOGSAG is a union that has the right to negotiate and I appreciate them… We are not in any way competing with CLOGSAG. The fact is that we have a policy and it is our responsibility as stakeholders and therefore, in the spirit of social dialogue, to ensure that the principles that we have agreed to govern salaries administration and reward and compensation management, are followed.”
Bernard Adjei