GNA staff elected 1st National Vice Chairman for the Communication Workers Union

The highest decision making body of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) of the Ghana Trades Union Congress, has elected Brother Enoch Antwi of the Ghana News Agency as its First National Vice Chairman.

Until his election by the national delegates at the Union’s fifth Quadrennial Conference in Kumasi at the weekend, the 56 year old was the Chairman of the Ghana News Agency Division of the CWU.

He polled 78 votes as against 15 votes by his main contender, Brother Emmanuel Addo of Ghana Post Company.

Brother Antwi is the first at the GNA to have attained that highest office in trade unionism.

The position of the National Chairman went to Victor Coleman, the former First National Vice Chairman, who stood unopposed. He took over from David Clottey, formerly of Ghana Telecom.

The position of the 2nd Vice Chairperson went to Sister Vida Ekuban, who beat incumbent Sister Vivian Addoboye Tefe with 53 votes against 40 votes. Both women are staff of Ghana Post.

The General Secretary and Deputy General Secretary positions went to Brother Henry Ayivor and Brother Joseph Hotor respectively. Both candidates stood unopposed. The two candidates were each nominated for the two positions and after a mutual agreement between them, they were declared as such by the Electoral Commission Officer in the Ashanti Region who conducted the elections.

Brother David Asare of Expresso was also declared the winner for the post of First National Trustee without any contender.

The race for the post of 2nd National Trustee saw four people contending. At the end of the election, Albert Tetteh of Vodafone Ghana won with 40 votes.

The rest, Bernard Boateng of ZTE, J.O Aheneampong of Ghana Post and Osei Bonsu, also of Ghana Post polled 21, 15 and 10 votes respectively.

This year’s quadrennial delegates’ congress was held under the theme: “Organizing Communication Workers in the Changing Face of Information and Communication Technology”.

A major challenge facing the CWU currently is the technological advancements, which had brought in their wake redeployment and redundancies in the sector, especially the one that hit Vodafone Ghana staff, formerly Ghana Telecom.

The Union lost over 4,000 members following the redundancy at the Vodafone Company.

The CWU has therefore called on government to see to it that Information Communication Technology (ICT) companies complied with the country’s labour law by allowing their employees to join the labour unions.**