The management of the Ghana Textile Manufacturing Company (GTMC) has withdrawn a proposal to send its 1,200 workers on mass leave.
The management had communicated to the workers leadership at a meeting last week that it was sending the workers on mass leave. The Company has also agreed to comply with a directive from the Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare and the Ghana Employers Association to pay the 1999 National Minimum wage of 2,900 cedis per day. The company had wanted to see the minimum wage in the gazette before implementation. It is however working out the mode of implementation since most of the employees are already earning above the minimum wage under a special arrangement, which granted the workers a 175 percent pay increase. Mr Steven Pao, Deputy Managing Director of the Company, announced the management's decision when about 100 executives of the Tema District Council of Labour (TDCL), protested against the sending of the workers on mass leave at a meeting at the factory.
The Council had threatened to embark on a solidarity strike action should the GTMC workers be sent on mass leave. Other issues raised were the low wages of the workers and the withholding of a day's pay for 93 TDCL members who took part in the July 25 demonstration called by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) to back its demand for a better national minimum wage. The TDCL said the mass leave was a strategy being adopted by the management GTMC to dodge complying with the Ministry's directive to pay the existing minimum wage across board with effect from January 1999. Mr Pao said the company's sales had fallen from about 40,000 pieces of cloth per month to about 7,000 in July this year, resulting in financial constraints adding that, the workers should not presume that the management is not sensitive to their plight.
He assured the workers that the management would consider all the issues raised but not under pressure.
