Let’s have road map for better remuneration for mine workers

Excerpts from the address by the General Secretary of the Ghana Mineworkers Union of the Trades Union Congress, Ghana, Mr William Prince Ankrah, at the 11th Quadriennial Delegates Conference of the Union held at Tarkwa from Monday, August 24 to Friday, August 28, 2015.

It is such a great privilege to have this rare opportunity to address such an august gathering of distinguished people of diverse backgrounds who have converged here from far and near to participate and share in our 11th Quadrennial Delegates Conference.

The long distances most of you have had to travel to make it to Tarkwa demonstrate the value you place on this conference. On behalf of the Leaders and all mineworkers in Ghana, we welcome you and cherish your presence and involvement.

My duty here is to share the viewpoint of our union on its conference theme: "Rethinking the remuneration landscape in the mining industry: Critical perspective(s) for change". My duty is simpler because the union has painstakingly prepared a conference theme document to provide our participants, key stakeholders as well as our social partners with our position and direction for this quadrennial. To some, the theme may be ridiculous, to others frightening, but to us, it is the new orientation, the journey and the future.

Our union has over the last two decades demonstrated its character as a concerned industry actor that holds the view that the interest of all the stakeholders must be valued and aligned as a pre-requisite for a sustainable future. This is reflected in the various themes the union chose for its conferences for the past 20 years.

This year's theme is no different except that it touches the core of workers' interest - salaries/wages. From the conventional economic theory of production, we know that the reward for labour is wages. I want to, with the permission of the theorists, rephrase this statement to read that "the reward for labour in the mining industry in Ghana and for that matter Africa should not only be just wages but fair and equitable wages.

Over time, we have come to realise that the issues of skill pricing and the huge wage income inequity affecting the under priviledged middle to lower level workers in the industry is the Union's problem alone. We have trumpeted this injustice and discrimination on many platforms but very little attention has been received.

Responses from the industry's stakeholders have been hypocritical or at best rhetoric. This year's theme is our new call and a resurgence of the union's resolve to have one of the most damaging challenges of the industry receive a different form of attention for remedial intervention. Afterall, it is said that he who feels it knows it all.

Brief History

From a historical point of view, mineworkers have traversed a chequered past of being used, refused and in some cases abused by mining companies after dedicating all their productive lives to the companies. There have been instances in the past where retired workers were transported empty- handed to their villages in articulator trucks after working in the mines for 30 years and more to languish in abject poverty till death. Along our difficult and painful journey, it became apparent that some kind of intervention was required. In 1997, following a global downturn which massively impacted the economic conditions in Ghana as well as the mining industry, the union initiated the idea of indexing salaries to the US dollar to address the fluctuation between the Ghana Cedi and the US dollar.

Leaders like Sir Sam Jonah and President Jerry Rawlings saw logic in the union's vision and assisted it to make it happen. With the indexation arrangement, the meagre salaries of the workers saw some relative stability over time but that was still not enough to support any decent standard of living.

The Union further negotiated new benefits with the companies into various collective agreements to support the workers in their daily strife with poverty. That did not yield the much-needed impact in terms of liberating the majority of the workers from the cycle of the working poverty syndrome.

The union in 2009, after indepth analysis of the industry earnings, campaigned for a new industry minimum wage intended to further jack up earnings to address the shortfall and also bridge the inequity gap as well as price skills appropriately. Consequently, the 'Agenda US$500' minimum kicked in and was pursued until 90 percent success was achieved. These interventions initiated by the Union have arguably made conditions of service of the mineworker better than most sectors of the Ghanaian economy.

Current Challenge

Notwithstanding the various efforts and interventions made by the union to change the destinies of the workers in the middle to lower levels who are in the majority, the gap is still yawning. If internal and external analytical comparison is made between what the priviledged expatriates and top Ghanaian Managers make, as well as what the same or similar skills across other mining environments make, the level of inequity is striking.

Internal Empirical Work

In 2014, the internal inequity argument was subjected to some empirical work by the union which is yet to be published. In the study, a sample of 3,049 gross salaries were selected from eight gold mining companies proportionally in relation to the total number of the various categories of these workers in 2012 and 2013. The data was on all categories of these employees.

The outcome of the analysis confirmed the long-held view of the union that, wage inequity is a major challenge in the mining industry of Ghana. It emerged from the analysis that the bottom (poorest) 10 per cent of the workers share of the income for the period was 1.26 per cent whilst the top (richest) 10 per cent percent share was 57.48 per cent. In other words, 90 per cent of the workers share of wage income (42.52 per cent) was less than the top richest 10 per cent income of 57.48 per cent.

Another revealing outcome of the analysis showed that the ratio between the highest salary (261,793.60) and the lowest salary (473.74) for the industry was 555.61 to 1 (555.61:1). Expressed another way, it will take the lowest paid person 555.61 months or 46.1 years of hard work to earn one month salary of the highest paid person.

External Comparison

The union also undertook external benchmarking to establish the relationship between the reward system in our industry and what pertains elsewhere. What emerged from this exercise only exacerbated the situation.

According to a 2013 HAYS research report put together by HAYS Resources and Mining Global Salary Guide titled "Australia 2nd in Worldwide Resources and Mining Salary Ranking", which ranked 37 countries according to locals/nationals and expatriates average annual salaries, Ghanaian locals/nationals only make US$39,200 compared with their expatriates counterparts of US$152,100.

This represents 25.77 per cent or a quarter of what the expatriates earn. Comparing our locals with their peers like South Africa (60 per cent), Congo DR (50 per cent), Mozambique (38.56 per cent), Namibia (51 per cent) all in the Africa region, Ghanaian workers are shortchanged in every aspect.

Another comparison was made when miningglobal.com, a renowned body that does research on the global mining industry wrote an article titled "TOP-10:- Highest-Paying-Jobs-in-the-Mining-Industry". In the article, a simple analysis indicated that, the average annual salary of the 10 global mining skills was US$129,142.90 compared with their Ghanaian counterparts annual average rates of US$25,918.32, it represents 20.07 per cent of the global annual rate.

Missing Variables

A further probe by the Union to establish the underlying causes of the present situation revealed that there are certain missing variables. These include factors that affect salary/wage determination at the unset of mining operations, for the middle to lower level staff over the years in Ghana and the classical economic theory of demand and supply, the notion of Ghana as a low wage country, the minimum wage of Ghana as well as benchmarked public & private sector pay.

Added to the above missing variables is the debilitating impact of the use of the purchasing power parity theory as a defensive mechanism for the naked injustice being perpetrated to further marginalise workers from developing countries. In my candid opinion, the theory is an offspring of the neo-liberal machinery created with the sole aim of creating a hegenomy for global capital.

It alienates the majority and isolates a very few who are preferentially treated to lead and perpetuate this neferious income imbalances agenda. It might interest you to note that the purchasing power parity theory has been debunked by many renowned economists including the famous John Keynes who remarked that "Confined to internationally traded commodities, the purchasing power parity theory become an empty truism".

Another reason contributing to the menace which is attributed to the government and other officialdom is the notion that when an important sector such as the mining industry streamlines its rewards systems with international best practices, it may not only create distortions in the national economy but more importantly trigger a passing through a disproportional effect for other wage eaners in the economy. This falacious assumption does not hold because in many other mining regions such as Autralia, the average annual income in their public sector is estimated around 60,000 Australian dollars but in their mining subsector, the average annual income is around 125,000 Australian dollars.

Ghana stands to lose a great deal if the current situation is left unattended to.

Way Forward

What the Union is communicating to the key stakeholders as well as the world is that, the discrimination, the alienation and the injustice must stop. We have carefully and painstakingly laid the issues bare from the perspectives of both internal and external realities of the Union's concerns and struggle. As a responsible trade union organisation, we have decided to pursue the path of geniune engagement with the view to maturely addressing the ugly and the inherent deficit that has perpetuated for decades. To us, the dawn of a new struggle is beckoning and the Union is prepared to heed the call to change the destinies of its members.

In conclusion, in the unlikely event where the usual corporate arrogance and disrespect for geniune workers concerns feature in our attempt to correct this ugly situation, we are most likely to witness one of the most turbulent times in the history of the mining industry in Ghana. History should tell us that, when workers' rights including equal pay for work of equal value is relegated to the background, the resultant reaction is the unfortunate Marikana example and the possibility of an industrywide class hatred with its attendant negative consequences.

Whereas we are not calling for quick fixes because of the magnitude of the issue, we cannot also allow the usual protracted and unfocussed attitude of the captains of industry because we are very much aware that when it comes to fixing the remuneration and the perks including share options for certain class of Ghanaian management, it gets done instantly or in seconds through whatever fastest medium.

In the case of those who sweat to produce the wealth of the industry, the process goes through several frustrations with calculated delays which mostly stretch beyond a year.

The Union cannot accept this as the option to remedy the situation. We call for a roadmap with clearly defined timelines in terms of the deliverables and caution that if we are provoked, we will strike!