Minimum wage: We hope tripartite committee does good job – TUC

The Secretary-General of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Dr Anthony Yaw Baah, has said he hopes the tripartite committee does a good job concerning the minimum age for 2021.

The national daily minimum wage is the least wage any employer in the country can pay a worker in a day.

Speaking to journalists in Accra after a meeting on the minimum wage, Dr Baah said organized labour has received the assurance of the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Mr Ignatius Baffour-Awuah, that as soon as the technical committee set up by the National Tripartite Committee to produce a report on the minimum wage finishes its job in the next two weeks, a negotiation meeting would be convened to discuss the matter.

“As soon as he receives the report, he has assured us that he is going to reconvene the National Tripartite Committee meeting, then the processes of negotiation start,” Dr Baah said, adding: “It is a very complex process and we hope they will do a good job”.

Also speaking to the media after the meeting, Mr Awuah explained that: “The process is that we have to put in place a technical committee, which will consider all happenings within the economy – things like the inflation rate and the growth of the economy – and submit the report to us”.

He, however, pointed out that the report of the technical committee is “usually not taken as a final product”.

“It is also negotiated”, he noted.

In 2019, the National Tripartite Committee (NTC) announced an 11 percent increase in the National Daily Minimum Wage (NDMW) from GH¢10.65 to GH¢11.82.

It was expected to have taken effect on 1 January 2020.

Announcing the increase in Accra at the time, Mr Baffour-Awuah also stated that the NTC had agreed that the new minimum wage should be tax-exempt.