The National Labour Commission (NLC) has filed a suit at the Labour Division of the High Court seeking to compel striking members of the Government and Hospitals Pharmacists Association (GHOSPA) to call off their strike.
“We have filed a motion at the High Court, Labour Division, to get a court order to get them to resume work immediately,” the NLC Executive Secretary, Charles Adongo Bawa Duah, revealed to Citi News.
GHOSPA begun an indefinite strike on Monday to push for changes to their market premiums.
The association said it was forced to resort to a strike over the breakdown of negotiations with government, spanning six years, over its grade structure and placement in public health facilities.
The Pharmacists have lamented discrepancies in its interim market premiums claiming that the Fair Wages and salaries Commissions has placed pharmacists working in university hospitals on a premium of 1.14 whilst the pharmacists working in the Ghana health services are on a premium of 0.58.
Thought the NLC has not described this strike as illegal, it has said GHOSPA’s actions are not in the interest of potential patrons hence its decision to resort to the law courts.
Mr. Duah said, “even though every worker is justified in pressuring the employer for better conditions of service and higher remuneration, they should also take note that they have a responsibility to ensure that people do not die needless deaths.”
Aggrieved health professionals striking
The strike by the pharmacists followed the protests by the Ghana Association of Biomedical Laboratory Scientists (GABMLS), who were striking to highlight their displeasure with government’s non-implementation of the National Health Laboratory policy.
GABMLS said the policy was vital to its practice as it would help raise the quality of laboratory science practice in the country.
The NLC subsequently ordered the biomedical scientists not to embark on their proposed strike calling it illegal and subsequently filed a suit at the Labour Division of the High Court against them praying the court to compel them to go back to post.
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