On March 1, 2017 some news outlets reported that the television network, TV3, has sacked 32 workers for wearing red bands (and tying some on the premises) and demonstrating instead of working. On the face of it, that may sound and even look reasonable, because workers are employed to work; to be productive to help the organisation attain profitability. However, close analysis of the issues involved will advise caution in jumping to any conclusions precisely because of TV3’s ultimate responsibility – to broadcast news, to inform the people, plus the implications of that very responsibility.
Now, was sacking the workers really the best option or it was only done to put the “fear of God” in all the workers?
According to the reports, management said the workers wore red bands and started a sit-down strike. Workers everywhere do that for one reason only – when they were dissatisfied with their contemporary working conditions and all attempts to get management to address their problems yields nought over a long time. Management also added that the workers did not follow laid-down procedure and directions of the Labour Act to put forth their problems. Yet, yet, management could forestall the use of laid-down procedure and directions of the Labour Act by refusing to listen to the workers. That leaves the workers’ only one option, what they did, and then management could then accuse them, technically, of not using laid-down procedure.
When workers demonstrate, management could respond in one of two general ways. One, it could sit and negotiating with the workers, or two, it could outright refuse to negotiate and eventually take the action TV3 management has taken. Management that negotiates with the workers is one that keeps in mind the fact that it takes itself and the larger body of workers to make a business. Such management understands that it does not always hold all the cards for decision-making, especially in unusual situations as pertain in TV3 now.
Those that behave like TV3’s management are the type that refuses to listen. But why is it refusing to listen? Sometimes it is because the workers’ demands are too high and they are simply stubborn and refuse to negotiate any reduction of their demands. However, it could also be because management refuses to listen to workers simply because it has not the means to even begin the increments the workers are demanding. And Ti-Kelenkelen’s suspects the TV3 case is the latter.
Yet TV3’s problems go further back. There was a time when it was one of the best television stations in this country and, arguably, on the continent. It had seasoned producers, editors and reporters, some of whom doubled as newscasters. Some of these personalities made positive news on and off television thus contributing to the rising image of the organisation. TV3’s programming was excellent too, and the two factors, not exclusively though, contributed to the large audience of the station, thereby making TV3 attractive to advertisers. The advertising – that is what brings in the cash.
Then the organisation decided to bring in a certain female chief executive who apparently failed, or is it refused, to realise that an organisation only ticks on teamwork, and so she started off by antagonising almost everyone. She appeared unaware of the demand of strategy that to change an established or entrenched system, one needs to work cautiously and slowly, but persistently. All the faces that made TV3 great left to other stations or to other jobs outside the media. Eventually, she also left, but since then it has been nothing but downhill for the station.
Of course, the point of the last-but-one sentence is not to intimate that only those in the vanguard of a media organisation do all the work, but simply to point out that for a media organisation image is everything and a lot of that everything depends on the faces of its vanguard workforce.
Few days after the sacking was reported, the President and General Secretary of the Ghana Journalists’ Association (GJA), respectively Roland Affail-Monney and Dave Agbenu, went to the offices of TV3 to discuss the matter with the station’s management. Whereas the management had earlier in its press release explained that it took that action because it has a reputation to protect and a business to run free of disruption, the GJA reminded it that the sacked worker are part of the team that helped TV3 build that reputation and business.
As the parent organisation responsible for the welfare and progress of publishing and broadcast sections of media workers, the GJA did the right thing by intervening. Ti-Kelenkelen’s only worry is that the delegation was not powerful enough. In her days as GJA president, Gifty Affenyi-Dadzie, would call a meeting of the body of members who would deliberate, put together a formal statement and pick out a more powerful delegation to go to TV3. Agbenu was a GJA executive member at the time and knows that procedure. A more powerful delegation may have had stronger impact.
Nevertheless, the GJA is right. To paraphrase our African Elders, TV3 management cannot cut its tongue, because it (the tongue) does fight with the teeth sometimes. When you cut off your tongue you will need a new one. Yet when that tongue is human workforce, you cannot just cut it off, because its members have the particular experience you have collectively worked with them to attain. Going to employ afresh and yet again train 32 workers will take years for them to attain the experience of the sacked workers.
The current stance of TV3 management only gives the impression it is a bunch of dictators. But let it not forget that it is the head of a news organisation, whose creed includes listening to all sides of an issue before taking any decision. An organisation that takes care of the interest of the public, must first know how to take care of the interest of its own workers or it will eventually lose the public trust.
From where Ti-Kelenkelen is watching, the decision to sack 32 workers is more an act of desperation than an act informed by a genuine desire to let the workers go. That is not to leave the workers blameless, but they may have come to red bands and demonstration, because – as our African Elders would put it – management decided to broke twigs and insert them in its ears.
Thus the only option that is in the interest of both management and sacked workers is for the former to, as a prelude, retract the sack order, and then it must sit with the leadership of all the workers over whatever the issues are. As our Akan Elders say: “Asem biara nni ho wode sekan na etwa; wode ano na eka” – There is no matter (or problem) that a knife is used to cut; the mouth is used to talk about (or deliberate on) it.
1. “Management that negotiates with the workers is one that keeps in mind the fact that it takes itself and the larger body of workers to make a business.”
2. “She appeared unaware of the demand of strategy that to change an established or entrenched system, one needs to work cautiously and slowly, but persistently.”
3. “An organisation that takes care of the interest of the public, must first know how to take care of the interest of its own workers or it will eventually lose the public trust.”
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