TUC condemns chaining of employee of Gateway Logistics Ltd
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has condemned the dehumanising treatment meted out to Mr Ibrahim Sanou, an employee of Gateway Logistics Limited, Takoradi, by his employer.
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Mr Sanou was said to have been chained to a container by his supervisor, Mr Manlio Maggiorotto, ostensibly to discipline him for loitering around during working hours.
A statement signed by the Secretary General of the TUC, Mr Kofi Asamoah, said “the chaining and restriction of the movement of Comrade Sanou is not only a breach of his fundamental right to movement but goes to the core of his basic right to humane and dignified treatment, as guaranteed by the Ghana Constitution”.
It said the treatment meted out to Mr Sanou was an insult to all working people in particular and Ghanaians as a whole, especially, given the country’s not too distant history of slavery.
“For an employer to have the temerity in today’s Ghana to chain a Ghanaian worker for any reason whatsoever is unconscionable and we totally and outrightly condemn it. We cannot countenance such dehumanising conduct in the world of work,” it said.
The statement said the TUC demanded that Mr Maggiorotto be produced for prosecution.
It called on the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations and the Ghana Employers’ Association to join hands with labour to ensure the protection of workers’ rights and to guarantee that no employer “will have the audacity to repeat this barbaric act in the country”.
Background
The Daily Graphic reported in its March 31, 2016, edition that Mr Maggiorotto, an Italian workshop supervisor, provoked anger at a company in a Free Zone Enclave in the Western Region after chaining one of his subordinates to a container in the hot sun as punishment for failing to complete a task assigned him.
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Mr Maggiorotto’s reason was that whenever he assigned work to Mr Sanou, he abandoned it and found ways of helping others to do their work.
Therefore, the best way to prevent a recurrence was to chain him.
The Daily Graphic got a copy of a March 21 memo from the Managing Director notifying the employees that Mr Maggiorotto had relinquished his post and returned to Italy with his wife.