Unfair labour practices eroding gains — Ghana Mine Workers Union
The Ghana Mine Workers Union (GMWU) of the Ghana Trades Union Congress (TUC) has expressed concern over unfair labour practices, saying they are fast eroding the gains made in the sector.
It said jobs in the mining sector were already risky, and that these practices — said to have continued over time — had “given employers the chance to milk workers dry through wage theft, denial of workers’ rights and other forms of abuses”.
“As a trade union, we find it difficult to comprehend why successive governments, after 18 years of the implementation of the Labour Act 2003 (Act 651), have failed to operationalise even one of the public employment centres under Section 2 of the Act to play the critical role imposed on the state under Section 3.
“Yet, labour ministers continue to conveniently grant executive permission to private employment agencies, most of whom are a creation of employers, for the ultimate purpose of making workers worse off under the labour flexibility scheme for the ultimate profiteering motives of companies, particularly multinationals,” the General Secretary of the GMWU, Mr Abdul-Moomin Gbana, stated during the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting held in Sunyani from August 20-21, 2020.
The 12th quadrennial NEC meeting was held to review the activities of the union for the first-half of 2020, plan activities for the second half, and to discuss some critical issues of national importance.
Loopholes
A media release issued by the union quoted Mr Gbana as stating that two other loopholes in Act 651 and Regulation 1833 were contributing to the precarious work not only in the mines, but in other industries in the private sector in particular.
He said these were found in Section 66 (a) which ostensibly granted exemptions to employers from paying redundancy/severance to workers engaged in temporary employment.
“Given this lacuna, and in our view the greatest injustice ever perpetuated against workers, employers have capitalised on this and are engaging workers on all kinds of jobs under cut-throat arrangement, all in the bid to escape severance payment, which is a critical employment protection arrangement under the law,” he said.
Gold and COVID-19
According to the GMWU, the global gold industry had stood out as the utmost beneficiary of the COVID-19 pandemic, and had since the beginning of the year seen an unprecedented break-through in its price as it soared above US$2,000 per ounce as of August 2, 2020.
The World Gold Council has posited that “Gold has been on a generally positive trend for the past few years. However, the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic has made gold’s relevance as a hedge even more apparent and accelerated its price performance.
“Gold increased by 17 per cent during the first half of 2020, moving up by an additional 10 per cent in July”.
Mr Gbana said the positive development undoubtedly would impact the bottom-line of mining companies, including those in Ghana, especially given their uninterrupted operations since the pandemic broke out.
“Considering the colossal havoc Covid-19 continues to wreak on global economies, including ours, the union believes that a highly favourable commodity price demonstrated so far and the potential windfall it brings to mining companies and the industry present a huge opportunity not just for job creation, but as a very important catalyst for economic growth and a path to economic recovery post Covid-19,” the statement said.
Caution
The union cautioned captains of industry to hasten slowly in making expenditure decisions on the windfall that is likely to accrue to them.
It said any attempt to rush into wanton dissipation of the funds by paying unreasonable dividends to shareholders and prioritising the payment of executive compensation, or by engaging in questionable procurement, or suspicious project acquisition would not augur well for the future of the industry, and where necessary would be resisted.