NLC meets government, doctors over strike but GMA expresses concern over threats

Caroline Boateng Aug - 20 - 2015 , 00:52

The National Labour Commission (NLC) yesterday met with striking doctors and government representatives to initiate wide-ranging measures in a bid to end the almost one month strike by the medical professionals.

The NLC meeting came after a press conference by the Minister of Health, Mr Alexander Segbefia, last Tuesday, at which he gave the doctors an ultimatum to call off their strike by yesterday or consider themselves in breach of the Labour Act 2003 (Act 651).

The meeting coincided with the release of a press statement by the National Executive Committee of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) detailing threats on its members since their industrial action began on July 30, 2015.

Doctors in the public service progressively began the withdrawal of their services from Friday, July 30, 2015.

They started with the withdrawal of out-patient services and followed that a week later with the withdrawal of emergency services.

Currently, public sector doctors are only attending to in-patients, pending a general meeting of the GMA at the end of the month to review the processes of securing signed conditions of service for doctors in the public service.

NLC’s position

The Chairman of the NLC, Mr Edward Biriku-Boadu, in an interview with the Daily Graphic before the meeting, said the seeming quietude of the NLC did not mean that it was inactive in the matter.

He said the NLC, as an impartial umpire, did not have to join in the wranglings of the GMA and its employer, in line with the NLC’s function of settling or facilitating the settling of industrial disputes.

He said the commission was meeting with the doctors and the government to direct appropriate measures for the speedy resolution of the impasse.

Among the directives would be a black-out on information to the media by the parties and the NLC itself, he said.

Compulsory arbitration

When the meeting started, information gathered indicated that the NLC had committed the parties to compulsory arbitration, in line with Section 164 of Act 651.

The section makes the NLC the arbitrator of the dispute between the GMA and its employer; that is, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) or the government.

The processes detailed in the law involve serving the parties to the dispute — the government and the GMA — with a notice spelling out all the unresolved issues between the doctors and their employer.

The doctors and the government would then have to agree that those are the unresolved issues between them.

A decision by the NLC will be binding on the parties, as a compulsory arbitration panel, under Section 164, comprising three members of the NLC, a representative of the government, a representative of organised labour unions and a representative of employers organisations, has the powers of the High Court.

Sources at the NLC said the government submitted its case, which included the fact that the doctors had gone on an illegal strike while negotiations on their conditions of service were ongoing.

The doctors, on the other hand, harped on the fact that being in the essential service group, their employers had to immediately and with urgency ensure the resolution of any challenges relating to their work conditions, a situation which had not happened.

GMA statement

Meanwhile, a press statement by the National Executive Committee of the GMA issued in Accra yesterday detailed threats against some of its members since the industrial action began.

Some of the threats were government communicators openly asking armed robbers to attack doctors and detailing the residential addresses of the doctors.

They included threats to junior doctors by the management of public health facilities, in some instances forcing the junior doctors to work against their will.

The statement cautioned that the GMA might be forced to take a tougher stance if such intimidation persisted.

It said at no point during the General Assembly meeting of August 14, 2015 did any members indicate that they were not in support of the industrial action.

It said a section of their membership that was purported to have voted against the action merely suggested a variation of the action; that is, the reinstatement of emergency services for two weeks only, which was not accepted by the overwhelming majority present.

It said as a democratic organisation, whatever action was taken by the majority was binding on all.

The statement said the GMA was of the firm belief that its strike was not illegal.

The statement, signed by the President of the GMA, Dr Kwabena Opoku Edusei, and the Deputy General Secretary, Dr Frank Serebour, asked the public not to believe any information on a break-away faction in the GMA and asked members to be resolute in supporting their executives in the fight for conditions governing their service.

It charged members of the Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG) and other quasi-government institutions to stand up and be counted and not allow themselves to be used as bargaining chips by the Minister of Health.

It directed all doctors to stick to the road map of the industrial action until they were directed otherwise by their executives.

• Writer's email: caroline.boateng@graphic.com.gh