The Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU) has declared its support for the protesting staff of New Times Corporation with a demand that the Managing Director Carol Annang stay away from the corporation.
Staff of the Corporation early today, Monday September 18, 2017, halted business activities there, protesting poor conditions of service and managerial incompetence.
They locked up offices at the company and poured out onto the streets. In July this year, the company under the leadership of Carol Annan, embarked on a massive rebranding drive which she believed would improve the operations of the state media organization.
However, barely 3 months after the rebranding exercise, the workers are accusing her of broken promises and a deliberate attempt to collapse the company.
“We are suffering at the New Times corporation. Our conditions of service are bad. The managing director has not fulfilled her promises, everything has come to a standstill,” the leader of the protesting staff told Starr News’ Emmanuel Gbikpo who monitored the demonstration “We pay 117,000 to graphic to print our papers every day, that huge amount is paid to them every day just to print our papers. Things are not working for us here at Times,” added the leader.
Joining the protesting staff to lay bare their grievances, the General Secretary ICU Solomon Kotei said, “We shall ensure that she [Carol Annag] will not step a foot back into this company.” He added, “We are going to get back to work and make sure what we will do to keep this job going we are going to do it. But then, our demand is that the MD is no more stepping here.”
Commenting on the situation earlier on Morning Starr, the President of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) Affail Monney described the development as “worrying.”
“We are overly concerned about what is happening in New Times Corporation because it plays a significant role in the media industry,” he told Morning Starr host Francis Abban. He thus urged the management of the corporation to as a matter of necessity listen to the aggrieved staff.
