GMA asked to rescind decision to go on strike

Accra, Sept 27, GNA - The Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC), on Monday appealed to the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) to rescind its decision to embark on a nation-wide strike over the implementation of the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS).

Consequently, the FWSC has assured the GMA that it was working around the clock to ensure that its members were migrated unto the SSSS by the end of October, 2011.

Mrs Eva Addo, Director in charge of Salaries, Grading, Re-grading and Job Evaluation of FWSC, made the call in an interview with GNA in Accra.

She said: “We are working hard on their migration, but for the payment of arrears, which the doctors are demanding to be paid them as far back as 2010 is negotiable and we are yet to meet them on that”.

Mrs Addo said the migration of workers in the civil service unto the SSSS was a process that was almost at the tail end.

She announced that the FWSC would from next week hold a two-week training programme on SSSS for members of the GMA.

Mrs Addo said: “it is our hope that by the time we finish with them the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department would have also finished with their part of the work so that they could receive salaries by the end of October as planned”.

The GMA at the end of their 5th National Executive Council meeting in Tamale over the weekend called for the immediate rectification of what it regarded as distortions created by the Commission in the process, leading to a delay in the migration of its members onto the SSSS.

The group threatened to embark on a nationwide strike if the migration process was not completed by 7th October 2011.

The GMA noted that it had for almost two years gone through all the processes needed for smooth implementation of the SSSS all in the spirit of negotiations with little success.

It said it had made extensive inputs into the SSSS grading structure based on scientific job evaluation and analysis in December last year, but it was disappointed at the FWSC’s distortions, which had no bearing on the job evaluation done.

The GMA said doctors were being short-changed, causing a lot of concerns resulting in agitations, frustrations and low morale, especially in the light of the current economic realities.

The National Executive Council of the GMA had decided that all issues concerning grading, market premium, inducement and other related matters should be concluded by the close of day, 7th October, 2011.

Mr Y. B. Amponsah, an Industrial Relations Consultant, called on the FWSC “to have a deeper look at the job content of the GMA and engage the GMA in dialogue to have the issues resolved.”