Council of Labour directs workers to red band

Takoradi, June 30, GNA - The Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Council of Labour on Wednesday directed members of the Ghana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) in the Metropolis to wear red bands to work as the first sign to the government that the union is serious about its resolutions against recent high tariff increases.

The Metropolitan Council of Labour gave the directive after a second emergency meeting on the tariffs increases at Takoradi. It advised workers to perform their assigned duties at their workplaces with all diligence and ensure industrial peace because the red bands are not aimed at their employers.

When questioned by employers, workers should explain the rationale for wearing the red bands, the Council said. It said workers would continue to wear red bands to work until the executive board of the GTUC meets on July 8, to decide the next step to take to have the tariffs reviewed downward.

In an address read for him, Mr. Kofi Asamoah, Secretary General of the GTUC, said the union is not against tariffs increases, but it is against the growing tendency of government to announce astronomical increases in tariffs without taking into account the prevailing low incomes in the country. He said Ghanaians are not worried about by the increase itself but by the magnitude of the increase.

"We believe that such sky high increases are bound to impact negatively on the already precarious living conditions in the country," Mr. Asamoah. He said, "The GTUC believes that increases of this magnitude in a year in which the national daily minimum wage was increased by only 17 per cent and public sector pay increased by only 10 per cent, cannot be justified". Mr. Asamoah said it smacks of insensitivity for the Public Utility Regulatory Commission (PURC) to ask workers to pay such record level increases in utility tariffs when their real incomes are on the decline. He said there is evidence that some residential users who are currently on prepaid meters are actually experiencing over 150 percent increase in their utility tariffs.

Mr. Asamoah said this is unjustifiable by all standards and the earlier government intervenes to reserve such obvious anomaly, the better. He said astronomical increases in utility tariffs could plunge local manufacturing industries into major crisis which may result in shut downs and lay off of workers and thereby compounding the already huge unemployment situation particularly among the youth. Mr. Asamoah said the increase in utility tariffs come in the heels of the astronomical increases in road tolls which translated into increases in lorry fares and prices of other basic communities. He said the hike in road tolls was done without any consultations with the relevant stakeholders including even those in the road transport industry. Mr. Asamoah said the GTUC raised its concerns about the magnitude of the increase and called on the government to consider a review of the tolls through consultations with the relevant stakeholders in the road transport industry, but the government has not responded to the concerns of the union.