12 MODEC workers quit job in solidarity with dismissed colleagues
Twelve Ghanaian workers of MODEC Ltd have quit their jobs in solidarity with their dismissed colleagues.
Advertisement
Five of the workers, who were offshore working, asked to be airlifted to base last Tuesday while seven others, who were to resume duty, refused to go in protest at the dismissal of their colleagues.
The company last Monday dismissed 29 Ghanaians for taking part in a sit-down strike to back demands for improved conditions of service.
According to the workers, they were always intimidated and threatened by their expatriate supervisors.
“The threat is now more than before,” they added.
Equal Pay
The workers said their grievance was not for them to be paid like expatriates or receive the same quantum of salaries as the expatriate workers that “our point is that the difference is too much and conditions are not the same,” they stated.
“We are all exposed to the same risk but what the foreigners are entitled to are not the same as ours. We have to learn to be just,” they added.
The angry workers recalled that when a helicopter carrying workers crashed off the coast of the Western Region, the risk was not limited to the expatriates, but to everybody onboard that aircraft.
“Therefore the discrimination must stop. Equal pay for equal work should be the way forward.”
Background
On October 28, 2014, about 20 workers of MODEC, managers of the FPSO Kwame Nkrumah, initially declared a peaceful sit-down strike to demand better conditions of service and were later joined by nine others.
The workers were subsequently brought ashore for further negotiations where they were promised better conditions of service and to be maintained as staff until the final determination of the case.
But contrary to the agreement, 29 out of the 71 Ghanaian employees were last Monday dismissed for taking part in the sit-down protest.
The dismissal letter read in part, “You are, therefore, dismissed without notice in line with Section 30 (3) of Act 651 from your employment effective Monday, November 10, 2014.