The Trades Union Congress(TUC) has called on government to find ways of addressing the issue of jobs and the salaries of workers in the country.
The Deputy General Secretary of the TUC, Joshua Ansah, intimated that although it was a good step for the President to acknowledge the Union’s demands, they still remain resolute and insist that the government makes it possible for them to have decent jobs and salaries in the midst of what is happening in the nation.
“I wasn’t all that enthused about the response because already we had made some demands and every demand has its corresponding responses. But I believe that once the President accepted to address us on May Day and also put up something on the day, that shows the readiness for us to engage in the demands that we actually requested for.”
Joshua Ansah
According to Mr. Ansah, although the President’s May Day address and responses were not directly in relation to what the Union asked for, he thinks that future or continuous engagement on the same issues will yield results. He averred that the President acknowledging the issue might be a sign of something good in the future.
Touching on salaries, Mr. Ansah stated that salaries alone cannot consume all the income the country generates. He stated that the country needs to generate more revenue so that workers will also have their satisfaction in terms of payment.
“If the President says that 50 percent of income of revenue is used in paying salaries so, we cannot do anything about it, I do not think it is right. But in the mean time, something must be done about workers incomes. If you look at the theme for the May Day, it was protecting our jobs and incomes in the era of COVID-19 and beyond, that means that now jobs and incomes are insecure. Permanent jobs are being changed to contract jobs, subcontract jobs are now the order of the day.”
Joshua Ansah
TUC looking at halting “indecent employment”
Mr. Ansah intimated that TUC is looking at ways of halting the types of “indecent employment” and make employment decent in the country. “When work is decent it means you have enough salaries in your pocket to meet your demands.”
The TUC General Secretary suggested to government to come to the negotiation table to address the issues bothering the workers and find an amicable solution to them. He also asked government to ensure the current step to review the single spine salary structure is done in way that will improve the conditions of workers.
Commenting on the President’s indication that government cannot remove taxes on petroleum products because it would lose monies, Mr. Ansah stated that although President has said such, he still believes that there are some of the taxes that can be removed.
“Total removal may not be the way forward but there are some taxes which we think can be removed to actually reduce the burden and also bring the prices of the petroleum products down. We will delve into that because we have actually listed the ones which are possible to be removed.”
Joshua Ansah
The TUC head stated that the list of the taxes which can be removed will be revisited to further ensure that something is done to reduce the fuel prices to help reduce burden on citizens.
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