Report by Nana POKU
The Staff and union of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) have given the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) a one-week ultimatum starting this week Monday to the following Monday to restore their removed legitimate allowances properly negotiated for or see them go on an indefinite strike.
Addressing a section of the staff and union members at the company’s premises, the Union Chairman of the local union, Nat Kevor told journalists that the staff will wear red bands, gear and attires for one week to protest for their allowances to be restored. He stated that failure to do so will generate an indefinite industrial action.
On the 30th of April, the Fair Wages Commission ordered the Accountant General to stop paying some long standing allowances to categories of the GBC Staff as it found those allowances illegal.
Some of the allowances are Rent Allowances; Domestic Allowances to Cleaners, Watchmen, and Cooks; Housing Allowances; Entertainment Allowances; Utility Allowances; and Computer Special Allowances. However, the union Chairman Mr Nat Kevor pointed out that this was a unilateral and arbitrary decision taken by the FWSC without recourse to the bargaining power agreement and labour rules or regulations.
He stressed that they fought for these allowances since 2013 and have since been enjoying them; so it has come to them as a surprise that the FWSC has decided to curtail these allowances.
They said that what is even more troubling is that, the FWSC has instructed the AG to deduct the already earned allowances retrospectively rendering some staff of GBC worse off.
As a result, the affected staff are to cough up a total of 2.84 million Ghana Cedis back to the Government Suspense Account. Upon the above development, the Public Services Workers Commission wrote to the FWSC to hold on whiles discussing take place to address the problem, but the FWSC is adamant which the union finds quite untenable.
They intimated that a meeting was arranged to meet the contending parties by the Labour Commission, MELR and PSWU but the FWSC failed to turn up. They stated that several correspondence and attempts have been forwarded to the regulatory body but none has been acted on to date.
They said that on the 8th of May, the management of GBC led by the Director-General wrote a letter to the FWSC to stop and clarify issues but to date, no favourable response has been received to that effect. The union believes the FWSC has diabolically selected GBC as a scape goat for its agenda.
They noted that so many CEOs of the Commission have come and gone but none of them found anything wrong with their legitimately earned allowances but only Ing. Ben Arthur.
Mr Kevor indicated that about 120 senior staff and management have been affected in this exercise worsening the conditions of living. According to the union chairman, the CEO of FWSC has categorically stated that he is not prepared to meet the union and anyone in the issue.
They stated that even an intervention by the Minister of Information did not materialize. He bemoaned the already low levels of salaries of the GBC Staff and said that they cannot sit down for them to be robbed of their hard-earned allowances without proper negotiations.
Mr Nat Kevor stated that the union and the staff have no choice but to embark on indefinite industrial action to press home the demand for fairness and equity. He hoped FWSC would bend and lower its ears to their request to avoid industrial action.
