Morgan Ayawine
The General Secretary of the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU), Morgan Ayawine, has urged employers to pay workers their living wages in conformity with international standards.
Mr. Ayawine said the essence of labour, primarily, is to meet the physiological needs of workers, indicating that living wages must therefore be commensurate with the toils and sacrifices of workers.
“Comrades, our survival as workers, now and in the future, depends largely on our present incomes and future pensions.
Therefore, pensions must be seen as sacrosanct and, as such, should not be violated under any circumstance, if the recent experience regarding the investment of pensioners in this country is anything to go by,” he said in the ICU’s May Day Message to all Union members.
He emphasised that achieving a living wage for the workers of Ghana and, by extension, protecting incomes and pensions, must be the responsibility of all stakeholders in the socio-economic equation of the country.
Workers across the country yesterday marked the occasion on the theme: ‘Protecting Incomes and Pensions in an Era of Economic Crises: Our Responsibility’.
The ICU General Secretary said Workers’ Day comes as a reminder of the emancipation of workers, from servitude almost a century and a half ago, that has now made workers to labour in dignity and with self-assertiveness, thus enabling them to sit at the same table, side by side, with their social partners (employers) to negotiate on matters connected with employment, non-employment and terms and conditions of service.
He therefore noted that as workers, the year-in-year-out celebration of May Day has imbued an irresistible sense of belonging in the labour fraternity which should motivate workers to give of their best at the workplace to increase productivity for our organisations’ profitability and for sustainable economic growth and national development for our mutual good.
He assured employers and, indeed, government that workers, “shall continue to play the role expected of us in the economic equation of the country by working hard”.
“The tripartite partnership of Government-Employer-Labour must be strengthened, efficiently and effectively harnessed, and work in tandem to finding a lasting solution to the intractable economic problems of this country so as to achieve sustainable and long-lasting economic relief for the workers and the good people of this country,” he added.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri