Ignatius Baffour Awuah
Members of the Civil and Local Government Staff Association of Ghana (CLOGSAG) are threatening to go on strike if they are not paid their interim premium.
At a news conference in Accra yesterday addressed by CLOGSAG’s Greater Accra Regional Chairman, Samuel Collison, the association said it was ready to start the strike by July 4, 2017 if the premium had not been paid by the date.
They said they are “saddened” by what they claimed to be “the attitude of the minister of finance in the payment of the premium to our members.”
According to CLOGSAG, the government on August 18, 2016 signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the members for the payment of the interim premium and was to take effect from January 2017, but claimed that the finance ministry had failed to implement the MoU.
“We wish to state that the payment of interim premium to our members has already been negotiated and agreed upon,” Mr. Collison said, adding, “The Greater Accra Regional executives wish to state that if by 4th July, 2017 the interim premium has not been paid , then the national secretariat should call a nationwide strike.”
In August 2016, CLOGSAG embarked on a strike for about two weeks to press home for the payment of their interim premium and the action almost crippling government business.
Then President John Dramani Mahama, pleading with them to end the action and return to work, had said that any attempt to yield to the demands of CLOGSAG “will throw the budget completely off track.”
He had said when he addressed members of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) in the Ashanti Regional capital of Kumasi during the Union’s Annual Congress, “Election year over-expenditure has been the bane of our economic stability. I am happy to note that this year, even though an election year, expenditure targets are still on track and I intend to stick strictly to the budget and the Appropriations Act as approved by Parliament.”
At the time, the striking workers insisted that they would only return to work when government signed a memorandum of understanding indicating when it would begin paying them the interim premium.
The National Labour Commission described the strike as illegal because CLOGSAG did not inform the Commission before embarking on it.
Then Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Haruna Iddrisu, asked them to return to work or forfeit their August salaries. The association subsequently accused the minister of acting in bad faith.
By William Yaw Owusu