Goldfields miners on strike

Authorities of the Tarkwa and Damang mines of Goldfields have shut down the mines following an indefinite strike embarked upon by workers of the company.

The workers embarked on their action after the management of Goldfields failed to heed their call for the reinstatement of the company’s former Vice-President, Mr Alfred Badu, who has been dismissed.

The workers had, on Tuesday, presented a petition to the management of the company after a demonstration in support of Mr Badu, whom they claimed was dismissed on a flimsy excuse.

According to the workers, with Mr Badu’s dismissal, foreigners (whites) now dominated the management of the company.

The workers claimed that under an agreement with the Ghana Mine Workers Union, 1.25 per cent of the company’s profit was to be shared among workers but that had been unilaterally changed to indicate that 1.25 per cent of the profit would be used to finance extra expenditure of the company.

Speaking to the Daily Graphic, the First Vice-President of the Ghana Mine Workers Union, Mr Abdule-Moonin Gbana, said the expatriate workers had adopted an attitude that threatened the rights of the Ghanaian members of staff.

He said there were various disciplinary measures that governed the operations of the company but those rules were applied differently when a Ghanaian worker went wrong.

He said that discrimination had affected the morale of the workers and subsequently impacted on the operations of the company.

Mr Gbana said efforts to resolve what he referred to as the unilateral change of rules and arbitrariness in disciplinary issues had proved futile.

Story by Moses Dotsey Aklobortu