Joe Frazier: Dare it be said; the economy can’t bear everything!

Labour agitations are a sign of a sick economy. Current times call for patient jaw-jawing. For, in matters of needs rather than desires, humans are very difficult species. They will dig in and fight. But in most cases, reasonableness prevails when the question is posed: “Would you rather that peace prevailed and demands pressed at a more opportune time?” That was the gist of an article that I wrote a week ago which, for prudence, I did not submit to the editor.

My stint in human resource was a time when industrial relations were fraught with agitations. Those were the days of wage-opener negotiations and redundancies. Negotiations were long and uncompromising but there was one tactic the unions adopted which I do appreciate to this day. Rather than negotiate with red bands, they came to the table armed with the Company’s Balance Sheet or a Certified Profit and Loss Account.

Comrade Kpoh, and later Comrade Atongwinie of the ICU, would want to prove that the employer had the ability to pay what they were proposing. Since that time, I have regarded any union negotiating with no regard for the financial health of the employer as simply firing scatter shots in the night.

Union cartoon
I am reminded of a cartoon which became a permanent feature of a notice board of the ICU at a time they had offices in the TUC building. It showed a little fellow whose foot was stamped and pinned under the foot of a Goliath of a man. The small man looked up at the face of the bully and in a defiant mood, squeaked, “We shall not negotiate under duress.” I have often reminded the unions of that cartoon and wondered who the bully was: Employer or the Unions? When a union lays down tools in the course of negotiations, he is the bully. On the other hand, when the balance sheet clearly shows that the employer “has the ability to pay” but is refusing to do so, the union is clearly the victim.

Basket of needs
I was working for a subsidiary of a multinational organisation whose head office is in London. The parent organisation ran regular workshops for its senior employees where new developments were introduced. At one of such workshops on Industrial Relations and Salary Administration, remuneration and benefits was defined as a basket of needs containing the following items:  basic salary, housing, medical care, education, training, transport and leisure. As an exercise, each of us was asked to give a weighting to each of the needs. The caveat was that the total value of each basket was not to exceed US$35,000, meaning that that amount was the employee cost which was budgeted for.

The outcome of that exercise for all 15 of us from three continents showed that Africans wanted high salaries, moderate accommodation and moderate education; Europeans valued moderate salary, high medical care and high leisure. Asians wanted moderate salary, high education and moderate transport. The idea was to demonstrate that employee remuneration and benefits was a total package; big basic salary required that the levels of fringe benefits be pared down.

Newspapers’ misleading information
Recently, for whatever purpose, our newspapers published proposals which were wrongly labelled as demands by the Ghana Medical Association (GMA). It showed they wanted “high everything” when the employer’s inability to pay was clearly not in doubt. People questioned how this employer managed to award fat ex gratia payments to certain categories of her appointees. The government clearly shot itself in the foot, but it does not mean that if a mistake had been made in one regime, it should be repeated subsequently.

Single Spine Pay Policy

One cannot talk about the present spate of conditions of service demands and strikes without referring to the Single Spine Pay Policy (SSPP) administration. The scheme with a high basic salary was not properly thought-through.

My blog of Daily Graphic, January 10, 2015 with title , “Wish, hope and promise” is pertinent here. The conclusion was a plea to all parties in negotiation to admit that the SSPP was not sustainable the way it was being implemented. One, for example, failed to understand why after consolidation of salary and allowances into a package, each item was still retained as a separate entity for negotiation.

By all means, all employees, including our doctors and teachers, must demand the best for themselves. However, they must know when the pot is empty. The economy can no longer take everything, hence my plea to the GMA and UTAG: People need short speeches and long sausages; long sausages are made from long man-hours, not long strikes. Nevertheless, salaries and allowances already owed by the employer need to be paid. May we see if savings could be made from areas such as foreign travels, protocol and vehicle running costs for the executive to pay such arrears? That is the craft of resource re-allocation in times of belt-tightening.

Email: frazierjoek@gmail.com                                
(Author: Blame not the Darkness, Akora; The Sissain Bridge)