Labour organisations want "covenant" with politicians

Accra, Nov 27, GNA - Labour organisations have proposed that presidential candidates of the political parties running for office in the December elections should seal a covenant with workers to guarantee that they would deliver on their promises to workers if they came to power.

Mr Abraham Koomson, Secretary General of the Ghana Federation of Labour (GFL), initiated the proposal during an interaction between leaders of labour organisations and Mr John Dramani Mahama, Vice Presidential Candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC). He noted that while in opposition, politicians saw all the wrong things about the sitting government and made fine promises of what they would do when given the mandate.

However, experience had shown that when the got into government they went back on the promises, he said.

"This time we need to seal a covenant with you and with all the parties to make sure that we have something to hold you to," he said. Mr. Koomson said workers would no more be fooled with empty promises without concrete guarantees, adding that "we need something to hold on to so that we can legitimately harass you to deliver." He said workers were of the view that a covenant would bind the politicians to respond to the cries of the workers, especially on issues and concerns that would be covered under the covenant.

Mr James Ekow Amissah, Acting Executive Secretary of the Civil Servants Association (CSA), also noted that civil servants would no more settle for the generalisation of solutions for their specific problems, saying that politicians needed to commit to specific tailor-made solutions to the problems of civil servants. "We want to know what exactly you will do for civil servants when you come to power, besides all the fine promises regarding the public sector in general," he said.

He noted that, for instance, special treatment had been given to medical the professional and teachers also had a special award scheme which served as a motivational factor, and said there was need to have similar schemes to also motivate civil servants. "Politicians have mastered the art of sweet talking to civil servants but when they come to power they then remember that they are masters and the civil servants are just servants so they forget about them entirely," he said.

Other representatives of various labour organisations took turns and raised issues about the restoration of end of service benefits (ESB), a return to the pre-Structural Adjust Programme PNDC era when government used to have a closer collaboration with workers at the negotiation table and the inclusion of a labour minister on the cabinet among other things.

Mr. Mahama assured the labour organisations' leaders that the NDC was willing to sign a charter with them and not a covenant, which had some divine connotation.

He said besides the charter, the only way the promises of the NDC to workers could be guaranteed was for the workers to believe in the trustworthiness of Professor John Evans Atta Mills as a humble, listening and committed leader with a heart to uphold the interest of public sector workers.

Mr. Mahama said having had the benefit of being in government and in opposition, the NDC was better positioned to deliver on its promises. He touched on affordable housing for public sector workers, saying that the NDC had a record of providing affordable housing across country and would continue when it came to power.

"Under the NDC we shall establish a building gang in all the districts to provide affordable housing structures for workers - we shall also ensure that every new school building would have housing facilities for teachers to spare teachers the hustle of having to deal with difficult landlords," he said.

On ESB, he said government and labour agreed to replace it with the pension scheme in order to save money and make public institutions able to employ more people after some go on pension, adding that, it could be looked at again.

He also assured the workers that the NDC would restore Social Welfare Department at the ministerial level - Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare - and make the minister a cabinet minister. 27 Nov. 08