Workers of Desimoni strike over conditions of service

About eight hundred Ghanaian labourers working with DESIMONI Ltd., an Italian constructing company, working on the ultra-modern state-of-the-art guesthouse for the Bank of Ghana (BoG) in the Sekondi-Takoradi metropolis, have declared a peaceful sit- down strike to press home their demand for better conditions of service.

According to the aggrieved workers, their Italian employers have failed to comply with the terms of conditions pertaining to their contract agreement with them since the project begun about seven months ago, around September 2015.

One of the workers who gave his name as Vandyke who engaged the media in an interaction made reference to how pitiful one of their colleagues who lost one of his arms recently in the course of duty was treated by the management.

According to him, the employers have refused to compensate the worker who had the life threatening injury while operating a concrete mixer machine in April.

He claimed that victim was not there as a certified machine operator but only as a labourer, leaving him to his fate.

He intimated that what was ‘eating them up’ was the reluctance of the company to provide them with convenient transportation to and from the work site as promised them earlier.

He said workers demanded for a daily transportation fare of GH¢ 5 but management have resolved to pay GH¢ 3.

Meanwhile, the workers have been given the option to either accept what management was offering them or quit effective May 31.

That move did not go down well with the workers who consequently embarked on the sit-down strike.

A deep throat source at the company told Today that the workers were being persuaded to work, pending an amicable settlement to the issue.

The ultra-modern BoG Guest House, situated at Butumegyabu (BU) near Fijai, a suburb of Takoradi, is a four-storey building, which will have a swimming pool, shopping mall and clinic among others.

It is expected to be completed within three years from the start of the project.