‘Streamline outsourcing of work’
The General Secretary of the IndustriAll Global Union, Mr Jyrki Rana, has urged the government to come up with a legislation to streamline or outlaw the outsourcing of certain aspects of work in public and private companies.
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He said outsourcing of work had often times resulted in the situation where contracting companies paid workers less although they had received huge payments on behalf of the workers.
Speaking at a news conference yesterday, Mr Rana said if the practice was not stopped, workers would get agitated and this could lead to demonstrations.
IndustriAll Global Union is a global labour association with 50 million workers in about 140 countries. In Ghana, the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU), the Ghana Mine Workers’ Union and the General Transport, Petroleum and Chemical Workers’ Union (TUCG) are the affiliate unions of IndustriAll.
Mr Rana is in the country to hold meetings with government officials and executive members of the affiliate unions on how to promote the welfare of workers.
Permanent jobs
Mr Rana said it was crucial to create permanent jobs for Ghanaian workers, since that was the only way through which they could get equal and better pay and enjoy other social benefits.
“What Ghana needs are permanent jobs not precarious work,” he said.
Mr Rana cautioned that the temporary engagement of workers, coupled with low salaries received in the outsourced contracts was potential source of exploitation and pointed out that it was unfair for workers performing the same tasks to be paid salaries with huge disparities.
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He promised that the IndustriAll Global Union would take up the issue of huge salary disparities between local workers and expatriates, to correct the anomaly.
ICU position
The General Secretary of the ICU, Mr Solomon Kotei, said the outsourcing of contracts was a major concern to the union, as workers were shortchanged by the contracting firms.
For instance, he said, a contracting company could collect about GH¢600 on behalf of a worker and ultimately pay the worker as low as GH¢150.
Mr Kotei said the ICU needed evidence to prosecute the offending companies, but the affected workers were afraid to come forward with the required information for fear that they would be sacked.
He cautioned the contracting companies that the laws of the land would catch up with them, if they were found to be cheating their workers.
The General Secretary of TUCG, Prince William Ankrah, expressed worry that some works were outsourced to companies that did not have any direct dealings with the workers who were engaged.