The Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC), has said it will not give in to demands from labour unions ahead of the impending elections.
With less than three months to the December polls, a number of labour unions including the Government and Hospital Pharmacists Association (GHOSPA), Colleges of Education Teachers Association of Ghana (CETAG), and recently staff of the Electoral Commission, have intensified demands for increased salaries and allowances owed them.
But the Head of Public Affairs for the commission, Earl Ankrah, says his outfit cannot yield to all these demands. “Most of these demands are not consistent with the way the policy works.
When you talk to GHOSPA, they will tell you they are not enjoying interim market premium…and for seven years they have been going back and forth and nothing has been happening. That is not true. GHOSPA is enjoying interim market premium.
The issue with their market premium is when they compare theirs with others. So it is not about what is on their plate before them. It is about what they are seeing on someone else’s plate…” According to him, some labour unions still have challenges with the payment of their market premiums because they have failed to go through the right procedures to have their concerns addressed.
He therefore asked the unions to use the appropriate procedures by channeling their concerns to the National Labour Commission. “We are not supposed to take decisions based on these ultimatums.. If you are not happy with Fair Wages and Salaries Commission, there are processes you have to go through; you take your case to the National Labour Commission, they will listen to both sides and take a decision; but unfortunately those procedures are not followed religiously.”
Last year, President John Mahama told striking doctors he would not yield to their demands , warning it would open the flood gates for other public sector workers to make similar financial demands, a situation he believes the economy could not sustain.
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