Metal Workers Demonstrate

... Against poor conditions of service

WORKERS OF Ghana Metal Fabrication & Construction Limited (GMFCL), smelters and producers of aluminum ingots, buyers, exporters and processors of scrap metals and residues, yesterday embarked on a strike action over what they termed as the company's failure to sign "Collective Agreement".

According to them, for over four years, the management has failed to sign the "Collective Agreement", which gives them the right to enjoy the privileges of the Trade Union Congress (TUC).

They gave an ultimatum to the management to sign the Agreement before they resume work and threaten to continue with the strike till further notice.

The workers argued that the company's failure to facilitate the refund of medical bills of the workers and to endorse the Agreement, caused the death of their Union secretary Nicholas Asare. Nicholas was reported to have died the day before yesterday after a short illness.

Information gathered by Chronicle indicated that the Mr. Nicholas was unhappy with the treatment of the GMFCL official clinic, the Mission Clinic and decided to try another clinic at Kasoa. The workers alleged that management failed to pay for his medical bill and that the sickness aggravated resulting in the death of the colleague.

When Chronicle contacted the chairman who doubles as the managing director of the company, Mr. B.K Amandi, about the grievances of the workers, he denied the allegation that management's failure to pay for the medical bills caused the death of Nicholas.

According to him the workers were using the recent death of one of their colleagues to bring to the fore all of their grievances, adding that the assertion of the workers were unfounded. He said the company pays for all the medical bills of the workers and also provides them with free meals from the canteen. To this end he said the workers have no grounds for complaint.

According to him, the deceased, after returning from the Kasoa clinic failed to produce the prescription for the company to screen it and pay and said he saw no apparent reason for the strike.

Touching on the core issue, the "Collective Agreement", Mr. Amandi said, he told the workers to exercise restrain and wait for the company to get a substantive general manager, who would then facilitate all their grievances and address them accordingly but they failed to adhere to his suggestion.

He said as at Monday this week, the management has reached a memorandum of understanding to the extent that management would restructure all the activities of the company after May 15, when the company have completed the interviews of those who have applied for the position of the general manager and are fully employed.

"I was surprise to see the workers embarking on this strike. Well if they fail to agree to the memorandum, the only solution is that the company would pay them off according to the Labour code and close down the company and start to restructure it."

The company, which works on contract basis, is for almost six months now without any contract and the management has to use resources from other companies to pay the workers. Meanwhile the workers always draw out the execution of jobs over last six months contract, Mr. Amandi said.

This apparent opportunism from the workers has angered the management to resort to pay all of them off according to the Labour code.

Meanwhile talks are currently going on between a three-member delegation from the TUC and the management to try and resolve the disagreement.