Be abreast with new labour laws

Kumasi, Aug 17, GNA- Mr Abraham Tetteh Okine, General Secretary of the Public Services Workers Union (PSWU), has said with the passage of the new labour law, Act 651, 2003, the era of wearing red arm bands by workers to ask for better conditions of service were over.

He has therefore charged workers to be very much abreast with the new law so that they were not found wanting when it comes to its usage. Mr Okine was speaking at the opening of a three-day seminar on the new labour law for 56 women union activists from Ghana and Nigeria in Kumasi on Monday.

The seminar, which is being organised by the PSWU, is to enable the participants exchange ideas on the new law so as to fully understand industrial practices and trade unionism under the new law.

It is also designed to help the participants to identify ways in which the new law could promote the interest of trade unionism. Mr Okine said, however, that the new law needed to be tested at workplaces to determine its suitability.

This is because it had a lot of changes, which needed to be studied to find its suitability, he said.

Mr Akoto Ampaw, a legal practitioner and a solicitor of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), said the new law has come to remove criminality in industrial sector.

He, therefore, commended the PSWU for organising the seminar since there was the need for workers to understand what the law says so as to move the industrial sector forward.