Tension at AGC

TENSION is mounting at the Obuasi mine of the Ashanti Goldfields Company (AGC) following the management’s decision not to pay the entitlements of its contract (casual) workers who have been laid off.

The Ashanti Miners Club last Friday applied to the Obuasi Police Command to be granted a permit to hold a peaceful demonstration on Sunday in support of the workers’ demand for the payment of their entitlements. At the time of going to press, however, the demonstration had not taken off.

The club said an agreement was reached between the AGC and the Ghana Mine Workers Union (GMWU) to replace the old system of hiring casual labour for certain jobs which the union insisted were the duties of permanent workers.

According to its president, Mr Mahama John Baba, at a joint meeting of the Mines Standing Negotiating Committee-Metal Mines of Ghana and AGC held on June 20, last year, it was agreed by the parties that casual workers should continue work till this year for their conditions of service to be concluded.

He said this agreement energised the casual workers to work harder, with the hope that something good would come out of the negotiations between the union and the management this year.

Unfortunately, however, the appointments of the casual workers are being terminated without any entitlements being paid to them.

In a strongly-worded petition to management, the miners club deplored the treatment being meted out to the casual workers and advised the management to recall them.

It has also called for a meeting to be convened to resolve the impasse before the workers are sent home.

The petition, which was signed by Mr Baba, said information reaching the club indicate that AGC was unwilling to change the conditions of service of the casual workers hence its decision to retrench them.

“We shall resist and continue to resist this act of ungratefulness,” it stressed, and expressed the hope that management “would rescind its decision in order to restore peace at the mine”.