Deputy Minister-designate for Employment and Labour Relations, Bright Wireko-Brobbey, says industrial strike actions by public sector workers are “inevitable”.
The nominee, who was responding to questions at his vetting by the Appointments Committee of Parliament, said “once you are in such an environment – government, employer and employee relationship –you may once a while experience strikes.”
He indicated that the ministry does not see strikes as “something too bad because any time there is anything like that we try to delve deeper to understand the issues to ensure that we resolve it once and for all.”
The nominee, who is also the NPP Member of Parliament (MP) for the Hemang-Lower-Denkyira in the Central Region, rejected assertion that the ministry shirked its responsibility in timeously resolving the industrial action by the Ghana Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists (GAMLS) and disclosed that it was the sector minister who prevailed upon the Labour Commission to intervene and help resolve the issue.
“Most of the issues do not come on a macro level for us to even go into them. There are matters that come which are related to institutions within a particular ministry,” Mr. Wireko-Brobbey explained.
According to him, the sector minister actually relayed the issue to the Labour Commission to take the action and since it involved life and death and the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health also showed same level of concern.
“For me, what happened was timely. Of course, you resolve issues today and tomorrow another one comes up. It boils down to the inevitability of strike,” he said and added that it is all about dialogue and the cooperation of the leaderships of unions needed in the labour sector.
By Ernest Kofi Adu