The Trade Union Congress (TUC) has called on the government to adopt a wage policy that indexes wage to inflation to guarantee the living wage and higher standard of living for workers.
The policy, when adopted, would ensure the protection of decent jobs that afford workers the opportunity to earn regular incomes in the era of economic crisis.
The Northern Regional Secretary of TUC, Felicia Krajah, who represented the Secretary-General of TUC, Dr. Yaw Baah, made the appeal during the May Parade held in Tamale.
“Workers are feeling the effects of high inflation, high cost of living, the destruction of jobs and potential jobs, including employment freeze in the public sector, the debt crisis and the effects of the domestic debt exchange programme on investors – including pensioners and many others,” he stated.
Dr. Baah said due to lack of national labour laws to protect jobs and incomes, too many workers are losing their jobs because some employers are abusing their rights to hire and fire them, while some employers are also taking advantage of the weaknesses in the labour law and replacing permanent employment contracts with fixed term contracts.
“In the last five years, TUC has lost thousands of its members due to this practice which is being promoted and facilitated by private employment agencies and that is why we have been pushing for a review of the national labour laws to protect jobs and incomes. We are counting on you to ensure that the review of the labour law is completed this year,” he added.
Pension scheme
Dr. Baah called on the government to either consider establishing one strong institution to manage the second-tier schemes or strengthen the National Pension Regulatory Authority (NPRA) to effectively regulate, supervise and monitor the numerous privately-managed second-tier schemes.
This, according to him, is to prevent a crisis similar to what happened in the banking sector which cost the taxpayer over GH¢20billion.
“We also need to strengthen the social insurance aspect of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) by making pensions accessible to all workers in the informal economy. It is simply unacceptable that only 1.7 million Ghanaians are enrolled on the SSNIT scheme when Ghana’s workforce is about 13 million,” he said.
The Northern Regional Minister, Alhaji Shani Alhassan Sani, meanwhile commended workers for their contributions toward the development of the country.
“We acknowledge and recognise that there are challenges relating to low salaries, poor retirement packages as well as poor social security, which ultimately do not provide the required incentive to boost your morale to deliver your utmost best at your workplaces; efforts would be made to resolve the issues,” he said.
