Casual workers of Children’s Hospital demand permanent status
Casual workers at the Princess Marie Louise (PML) Children’s Hospital, Accra, have threatened to embark on an indefinite strike over poor working conditions.
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The decision by the over 50 workers, who are referred to as unmechanised workers or casual workers, was to give more meaning to their efforts over the years to get their employers to regularise their employment.
The workers, who have formed an association known as the Unmechanised (Casual) Workers Association, PML Children’s Hospital, said prior to the strike, they would engage in a protest march from the Children’s Hospital to the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations, the Ministry of Health and then to the Flagstaff House to alert the various authorities about their plight.
Labour law
The spokesperson for the association, Mr Francis Asare, urged the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations and the Minister of Health, as well as the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) to fast-track the processes of regularising their employment status since they had worked beyond the stipulated period permitted by the Labour Law.
The Labour Act 2003 stipulates that a temporary worker, who is employed by the same employer for a continuous period of six months and more shall be treated as a permanent worker.
According to the workers, they have also decided to sue the government for breaching the Labour law.
Salaries
Mr Asare said the casual workers were being paid based on flat rates, which, according to the GHS, were meant for labourers and interns.
“These unsustainable low salaries are given to us irrespective of our educational qualifications, the number of years one has spent working hard for the government and we have no provision for risk allowance,” he said.
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The basic salary of the workers, who have worked for three to 18 years at the hospital, according to the spokesman, ranged from GH¢160 to GH¢189.
“We have never experienced even a single promotion after all these years. How does the government expect us to make ends meet and pay utility bills and other expenses just like any other worker in the Ghana Health Service?” Mr Asare asked.
Promise
He said even though the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, promised last year after a meeting that the issue would be resolved in the early part of 2016, the situation remained the same.
Mr Asare expressed worry over why the countless meetings and letters to the GHS, the Ministry of Health, the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission, the Labour Department and the Presidency had yielded no results.
Currently, the association claimed it had reliable information that the Ministry of Health was preparing the conditions of service for all health workers but they had not been factored into that decision.