Casual workers of PBC threatens strike action

Suhum, Jan. 4, GNA - Cocoa loaders of the Produce Buying Company in the Eastern Region are threatening to go on strike if management of the company continued to pay them 500 cedis per bag of cocoa.

The workers complained at a meeting attended by 40 cocoa loaders at Suhum that two years ago they sent a petition to the management of the company to increase their loading fee but never received any response. Mr Stephen Kwaku Bediako, a spokesman for the workers, said the 500 cedis per bag of cocoa paid by the company was too low because apart from the loading, the workers also undertake stocking, grading and sealing of the cocoa bags.

He said some of the workers who are casual workers had served the company between 10 and 12 years and that despite several increases in the daily minimum wage by the government, the company has refused to increase the loading fee.

Mr Bediako said the workers received about 100,000 cedis per month whenever they load an articulator truck and that at the end of the month if no articulator truck is loaded they receive no pay.

He said some of the watchmen of the company had not received their pay for the past eight months and that last year when the workers complained about the poor conditions of work to the Eastern Regional Manager of the Company, Mr F.K. Adu, he become offended and asked the workers to go home.