Stemming the spate of industrial actions

The atmosphere in the country in some few weeks now has been marked by a string of strikes involving mainly workers in the health, educational and judicial sectors.

Just last week, the Daily Graphic appealed to the factions involved in negotiations over the conditions of service to endeavour to reach an amicable settlement before the situation gets out of hand.

Currently, medical doctors, members of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) and pharmacists are on strike. Psychiatric nurses have just called off their strike over salary arrears. State Attorneys and judicial service staff also resorted to strikes recently.

We have had to return to the subject because we are of the opinion that for any country or government, such rampant acts of unrest on the labour front should be sufficient reason for concern, particularly where it has to do with an essential service such as health care.

Even though the country has time and again suffered from the effects of such strikes, we appear not to have learnt any useful lessons whatsoever and failed to act swiftly on conditions that lead to such unfortunate and avoidable actions.

The unfortunate truism is the belief of Ghanaian workers, either rightly or wrongly, that grievances cannot be dealt with by their employers until the aggrieved or affected group of workers resort to strike. And our aspirations as a country to rub shoulders with the Asian Tigers with whom we had independence around the same time and who have progressed into developed countries have come to nought.

While admitting that strike actions are a vehicle for aggrieved groups to express their dissatisfaction at delays in resolving their grievances, experience has shown that such attitudes have often resulted from mistrust or lack of faith by both employers and employees.

The Daily Graphic believes that this does not augur well for the image and socio-economic development of the country. This could have arisen as a result of inadequate engagement that might have resulted in a gap in communication and mistrust.

We, therefore, believe that both parties should commit themselves to agreements that are reached during negotiations. Again, the parties should cultivate mutual trust for one another in order to be able to engage in meaningful discussions.

We once again appeal to our striking doctors to consider the masses who, by all indications, are not the ones to agree to their demands but are rather bearing the brunt of the strike, and return to the consulting rooms, since a life lost cannot be replaced after the doctors have called off their strike.