Ghanaian Workers Demand Higher Minimum Wage

ACCRA, Ghana (PANA) - Thousands of placard-bearing Ghanaian workers Tuesday took to the streets of cities and towns in the country in protest of government's failure to come up with an acceptable minimum wage.

Led by the secretary-general of the Trades Union Congress or TUC, Christian Appiah Agyei, the workers wearing red armbands and headgear chanted war songs and blew trumpets in the three- hour demonstration.

Some of the placards read: 'JJ why have you disappointed us so soon?' 'Stop the development of mass poverty in Ghana', 'What a great disappointment NDC?' and 'No increment, no vote'. (JJ is for Jerry John (Rawlings,) Ghana's president and NDC his ruling National Democratic Congress).

At the employment and social welfare ministry, Agyei said notwithstanding the agreements reached at the Tripartite Committee meeting Monday, the demonstration was not called off because the people are appalled by the worsening economic conditions.

He said TUC would keep its side of the bargain as reached at the meeting and assured the employment and social welfare minister, Muhammad Mumuni, that the position of the Congress would be made known Monday.

He urged the other social partners to do likewise.

The demonstration, according to TUC sources, was as a result of declining salaries of workers in the face of the falling value of the cedi against the country's major trading currencies in recent months.

Mumuni said the workers' petition would be sent to the right quarters for the appropriate response.

He described the demonstration as a unilateral decision by TUC that has the tendency of pushing some social partners to the wall.

"It was not in the spirit of moving from the entrenched positions that the social partners had stuck to in the past," he said.

Mumuni blamed the country's economic woes on the international community because of the poor prices of its major exports cocoa and gold and high oil process.

"This situation of a low market price of our commodities has led to a loss of 450 million cedis and for a small economy such as ours, this is a huge amount that has indeed thrown us out of gear," he added.

The government said earlier that organised labour union agreed to drop their initial positions on the minimum wage and to resort to dialogue aimed at finding an acceptable position to all partners.

It said the TUC has undertaken to submit its proposals on the minimum wage for 2000 to his ministry before the close of work 31 July.

"On receipt of the proposals from the Trades Union Congress, the National Tripartite Committee will reconvene to continue the deliberations on the national daily minimum wage for the year 2000," he said.

The current minimum wage is fixed at 3,505 cedis (58 US cents) a day, which is far less than the five dollars approved by the International Labour Organisation.

According to TUC, the government side at the last meeting declared that it was not interested in the determination of the minimum wage, and that it was only responsible for the salaries of its employees in the civil and public services.