Mr Kofi Asamoah, Secretary General of the Ghana Trades Union Congress
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24th December, 2011
Let's Start Consultations On National Living Wage - Kofi Asamoah
The Secretary General of the Ghana Trades Union Congress, Mr Kofi Asamoah, has called on social partners and the government to restart consultations towards a National Living Wage to ensure workers benefit from expected high economic growth in the country.
He said that Ghana is now recognized as a middle-income country and consequently, the salaries and living standards of workers should be reflecting that status.
He stated this at the 2011 Ghana TUC/GJA end-of-year interaction, in Accra on Thursday.
“No middle-income country pays its workers less than 10 dollars a day. If Ghana is indeed a middle-income country we should feel it in our pockets,” he added.
Mr Asamoah indicated that the union was convinced that productivity in Ghana would improve if workers were sufficiently compensated and that exhortations, admonitions and appeals alone could not bring out the best in the country’s workers, whose pay is often insufficient for basic essentials such as food, healthcare, transport, and school fees.
Mr Asamoah expressed the Trade Union’s dissatisfaction with the lack of decent employment available for the country’s youth and urged the civil society to put pressure on the government to resolve this challenge.
He said that beyond political rhetoric, there have been no concrete methods introduced to address these challenges, saying that Ghana will continue to witness high incidences of social vices such as destitution, child labour, armed robbery and prostitution if the issue is not address.
He stressed that it was the government’s duty to create more jobs in the priority sectors of sanitation, infrastructural development, education and health to ensure the country’s citizens have access to these basic needs.
“It is the primary responsibility of government to ensure that the people of Ghana have access to clean water, adequate sanitation, quality education, health services and adequate protection.
“We can generate thousands of decent jobs around these basic needs if we make employment creation a priority issue,” he added.
Touching on the implementation of the Single Spine Pay Policy (SSPP), Mr Asamoah said that despite 98 per cent of all public service employees being placed on the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS), many remain dissatisfied with the new pay structure as it has failed to lift the rate of their salaries.
He emphasized that the Union believed the SSPP must address the low pay in the public sector otherwise all that has been achieved so far will account for nothing.
He said that as we enter an election year the Union was making an appeal to the government to “take the bull by the horn” in regards to increasing salary rates.
Mr Asamoah urged social partners to agree with the Union’s proposal for a significant adjustment of the National Daily Minimum Wage and also the Base Pay and Relativity on the SSSS to ensure public service workers receive a decent salary.
“The Base Pay and the Pay Point Relativity on the SSSS should be adjusted in such a way that the SSSS can offer meaningful salaries to all public service workers,” he said.
He said that Ghana is now recognized as a middle-income country and consequently, the salaries and living standards of workers should be reflecting that status.
He stated this at the 2011 Ghana TUC/GJA end-of-year interaction, in Accra on Thursday.
“No middle-income country pays its workers less than 10 dollars a day. If Ghana is indeed a middle-income country we should feel it in our pockets,” he added.
Mr Asamoah indicated that the union was convinced that productivity in Ghana would improve if workers were sufficiently compensated and that exhortations, admonitions and appeals alone could not bring out the best in the country’s workers, whose pay is often insufficient for basic essentials such as food, healthcare, transport, and school fees.
Mr Asamoah expressed the Trade Union’s dissatisfaction with the lack of decent employment available for the country’s youth and urged the civil society to put pressure on the government to resolve this challenge.
He said that beyond political rhetoric, there have been no concrete methods introduced to address these challenges, saying that Ghana will continue to witness high incidences of social vices such as destitution, child labour, armed robbery and prostitution if the issue is not address.
He stressed that it was the government’s duty to create more jobs in the priority sectors of sanitation, infrastructural development, education and health to ensure the country’s citizens have access to these basic needs.
“It is the primary responsibility of government to ensure that the people of Ghana have access to clean water, adequate sanitation, quality education, health services and adequate protection.
“We can generate thousands of decent jobs around these basic needs if we make employment creation a priority issue,” he added.
Touching on the implementation of the Single Spine Pay Policy (SSPP), Mr Asamoah said that despite 98 per cent of all public service employees being placed on the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS), many remain dissatisfied with the new pay structure as it has failed to lift the rate of their salaries.
He emphasized that the Union believed the SSPP must address the low pay in the public sector otherwise all that has been achieved so far will account for nothing.
He said that as we enter an election year the Union was making an appeal to the government to “take the bull by the horn” in regards to increasing salary rates.
Mr Asamoah urged social partners to agree with the Union’s proposal for a significant adjustment of the National Daily Minimum Wage and also the Base Pay and Relativity on the SSSS to ensure public service workers receive a decent salary.
“The Base Pay and the Pay Point Relativity on the SSSS should be adjusted in such a way that the SSSS can offer meaningful salaries to all public service workers,” he said.
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