TUC fails to resolve Forestry Commission impasse

Accra, Jan. 23, GNA - The Forestry Commission branch of the Timber and Woodworkers Union (TWU) has accused the Executive Board of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) of duplicity and indecision in resolving a three-year old unionization dispute between employees of the Forestry Commission and the General Agricultural Union (GAWU). The branch union also blamed the Ministry of Manpower Youth and Employment for the lack of political will to redress the dispute which it generated.

"The entire workforce of the Commission is disappointed over this conspiracy of the Ministry and the TUC Executive Board, which has caused them unpardonable financial loss from their would-be improved service conditions in their new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) which expired last year," Mr Ben Asante, Secretary of the Forestry Commission branch of the Union told the GNA in an interview in Accra. He said both the TUC and the Ministry had been coercing the workers to join a union against their choice in strict violation of section 7 9 (1) of the Labour Act 2003 (Act 651).

"Our legally concluded CBA with the TWU expired last year, but all attempts to renew it were stalled because of a false claim of GAWU over the Commission's employees", Mr Asante said.

Mr Asante said it was very intriguing that the dispute which erupted 93on the lap of Mr Yaw Barimah," then Labour Minister, in the wake of the commencement of the new Labour Act of 2003 had still remained unresolved by three successive ministers of labour to the detriment of the Forestry Commission employees.

Giving a background to the formation of the Union, Mr Asante said following the enactment of the Forestry Commission Act (Act 453), all the five existing divisions of the forest sector were transformed into the Forestry Commission and the five divisions came together for form a central union for all staff of the Commission.

He said as a result of the restructuring, redundant staff were retrenched and handsome severance awards were paid to them in accordance with the CBA with the TWU, but unfortunately the retrenched staff of the former Forestry Department and the Department of Game and Wildlife which were operating under the GAWU without a CBA never enjoyed any severance award like their counterparts in the three other divisions covered by the CBA under the TWU.

According to Mr Asante, in 1999 when the Commission was established, the then local union wrote a five-page memorandum to the GAWU on the impending exercise, but it failed to capitalise on it to negotiate any severance awards for its members at the Forestry Department and the Department of Game and Wildlife.

Mr Asante said in pursuit of their objective of forming a strong central union, the management of the Commission in 2003 granted permission to the union to tour all 47 district and 10 regional offices of the Commission to sensitize the staff on the envisaged union. He said the tour culminated in the holding of a national delegates' conference in Kumasi in October 2003 to elect their current executives and also to resolve to join TWU, adding that the TWU consequently applied for and obtained a new CBA on behalf of the new union on November 13, 2003.

According to Mr Asante, the Union thereafter received a letter from the Chief Labour Office, stating that Mr Barimah, then Labour Minister, had directed that the negotiations be stalled to determine which of the two unions (TWU and GAWU) had the majority of members in the Forestry Commission, saying 93the Minister's strange ruling in favour of GAWU has created the current disharmony in the Commission." He said requests by the TWU executives to meet with Mr Barimah after he had ordered the Chief Labour Officer to issue a CBA to the Commission staff on behalf of the GAWU failed until he was moved from that ministry.

Mr Asante said an attempt by the TUC Executive Board also failed to resolve the impasse as its decisions appeared to be tilted in favour of GAWU although a large number of the staff favoured remaining with the TWU.