We will negotiate the base pay for 2021 with a 21% increment- NAGRAT

The President of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), Angel Carbonu, has called for a 21 percent increment on the base salary as a result of the lamentable conditions they are faced with.

In effect, Mr. Carbonu demanded the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) to immediately commence negotiations on the base pay for 2021.

Speaking in an interview, NAGRAT’s president bemoaned the poor conditions of service public sector workers have had to endure, emphatically stating that the current economic hardships demanded a twenty one percent increment for the 2021 base pay.

“We are calling on the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission and the Public Sector Joint negotiations committee as a whole to quickly reconvene for us to negotiate the base pay for 2021. As a union, we will not shy away from indicating that looking at the economic situation and the challenges that Ghanaian teachers face, we will negotiate the base pay for 2021 with a 21% increment. So, NAGRAT is calling on all stakeholders to arrange a meeting to discuss this.”

Highlighting some of the challenges, he urged government to rectify the issues.

“Somebody is just indicating that when you are transferred below 50 kilometres, you are not paid transfer grants. I do not know who negotiated that, workers did not negotiate that. Workers are transferred without accommodation packages. Somebody is introducing a certain strange clause. We want to find out who did and when it was because it seems workers are being taken advantage of”.

In 2019, The National Tripartite Committee (NTC) announced an increase in the National Daily Minimum Wage (NDMW) to GH¢11.82.

The new minimum was an 11 per cent increase from the GH¢10.65 figure for 2019.

With this, it was the least wage any employer in the country can pay a worker in a day.

Announcing the increase in August 2019, the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Mr. Ignatius Baffour-Awuah, also stated that the NTC had agreed that the new NDMW should be tax-exempt.

He advised all establishments, institutions and organizations to adjust their wages accordingly and warned that any entity which flouted the new rate would be dealt with in accordance with the law.

In a similar vein, the Minister announced that the government and organised labour had agreed that the current base pay on the Single Spine Salary Structure should be increased by 12 per cent across board for the year 2020 at the existing pay point relativity of 1.7 per cent.

He said the base pay, therefore, had been increased from GH¢9.10 per day in 2019 to GH¢10.19 in 2020.

Mr. Baffour-Awuah further noted the said parties had also agreed to revise the prevailing rates of allowances expressed in the absolute amounts on the categories two and three allowances to new levels to take effect from January 2020.

He advised government ministries, departments and agencies to take appropriate steps to give effect to the revised categories in accordance with new guidelines to be issued by the Ministry of Finance.