Head of Public Affairs at the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC), Earl Ankrah, has revealed that the Commission could not delve deep into issues at a meeting with the leadership of UTAG over its demands following the suspension of its strike action.
According to him, the meeting which commenced today and intended to find solutions to the labour issue the Commission is confronted with was“cordial”. Mr Ankrah explained that government always finds reasons to act on concerns that any group of workers in the country express and as such, the Commission couldn’t have simply written “just a letter without earlier consultation” with relevant stakeholders.
“We could not go deep into the issues [because] it was an introductory meeting. Remember this is the first time we are meeting since they called off the strike and following the calling off of the strike, Fair Wages was then at liberty to invite them for the engagement processes. So, that was what happened today; we’ve not gone into the hard crust yet”.
Earl Ankrah
Commenting on how long the engagement with UTAG is expected to last, Mr Ankrah indicated that he cannot put a timeline to the conduct of negotiations as no party is able to ascertain how long such an engagement is supposed to last.
“It’s a negotiation and we are within early days yet. The parties will have to decide together what the key issues are, what it will take to resolve the key issues and then we will be able to tell how long it’s going to run. The important thing is both parties are around the table and that’s what all stakeholders have been talking about since they went on strike”.
Earl Ankrah
Meanwhile, the University of Ghana (UG) branch of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG), has voted against a decision by the National Executive Committee of the Association to suspend its nationwide strike.
In a tally result signed by the Electoral Commissioner of the UTAG-UG branch, Dr. Innocent Lawson, 596 UTAG members voted against the suspension of the strike, while some 127 others voted to accept the decision by the National Executive Committee of UTAG to suspend the strike.
National Labour Conference to be held next week
President Akufo-Addo is expected to present a keynote speech at the National Labour Conference stakeholders scheduled to take off next week. The conference is expected to bring together various stakeholders such as the National Labour Commission and ministry of Employment and Labour Relations.
The Head of Public Affairs at FWSC intimated that the two-days conference, will also focus on other contributions from main stakeholders and will be held under the theme: ‘Strengthening Tripartism for Building Peaceful Evaluations And Resilient Economy’. He noted that the minister for employment who doubles as the Chair of the Tripartite will be present to deliver his speech as well as a speech from the Ghana Employers Association.
“Then, Dr Yaw Baah, who is the Secretary General of Trades Union of Ghana will be there. The minister for finance will also be there to give a technical presentation on the state of the economy. The following day, we go into technical discussions which will look at salaries and conditions of service and productivity… Then another key issue on prevention and managing labour disputes”.
Earl Ankrah
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