The General Secretary of the Public Sector Workers Union (PSWU), Bernard Adjei, has called on the government to cushion workers amid the current hardship confronting the country.
According to him, government must intervene in the matters concerning workers and support them. He indicated that workers are struggling to cater for themselves, hence, their demand for a cost-of-living allowance.
“We believe that we can always put ourselves together and honour the demand of workers because things keep getting worse by the day. How long can workers survive this? All we are asking simply is that cushion workers; things are hard. Otherwise, we don’t know how we will survive.”
Bernard Adjei
Mr Adjei revealed that public sector workers and other unions have overtime made several pleas and petitions to government prior to carrying out their strike action. He highlighted that none of the unions “wanted it to get to this point”, although their predicament dictated otherwise.
“I believe we started calling for this a while ago. On May Day it came up, followed by a letter. Our colleagues, the teacher unions then followed it up with an ultimatum [but] nothing was done until the strike began. It’s rather unfortunate.”
Bernard Adjei
GMA demands COLA for doctors
On his part, the General Secretary of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA), Dr Titus Beyuo, disclosed that the Association is also demanding for the Cost of Living Allowance. He expressed that doctors, like other members of the organised labour, have equally been hit by the current economic hardships.
Dr Beyuo stated that the GMA is “part of a bigger group called the FORUM which has also called for the COLA”.
“We are singing the same song and we have wished that government would have started with us much earlier to negotiate and discuss this… Doctors are struggling. We are buying from the same market, we are buying the same fuel, we don’t get fuel coupons, and doctors have parked their cars and are now getting on board ‘trotro’ because they can no longer afford fuel.”
Dr Titus Beyuo
Elaborating on the demands of COLA by public sector workers, Dr Beyuo stated that the allowance being demanded by the organised labour unions, “is not significant, [but] at least it can do something”. He emphasized that bearing in mind the state of the economy, the government should have begun negotiations on the Cost-of-Living Allowance with the unions long ago.
“The COLA is not a normal salary. It’s a temporal allowance given to a worker because of some special situation. Successive governments have given COLA to labour unions to cushion us for a temporal period and the government should have met with us much earlier and negotiated a temporal allowance for a particular period, that they think the economy will return to normal. That’s all we are asking for.”
Dr Titus Beyuo
Contributing to the discussion, the General Secretary for the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwifery Association (GRNMA), David Tenkorang-Twum, disclosed that remuneration for workers who contributed to the fight against Covid-19 during its peak have not been paid. He noted that the additional 50% allowance of their basic salary for a four-month period commencing from March 2020 and other insurance benefits government promised have not been met by government as well.
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