Labour Commission stops upcoming nurses, midwives strike with court injunction

The GRNMA had scheduled Monday, September 21 to commence its strike action

The National Labour Commission has secured a High Court Order to stop the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA) and its allied health partners from undertaking an intended strike action scheduled for Monday, September 21, 2020.

The GRNMA in a letter dated Thursday, September 17, 2020, and addressed to the National Labour Commission notified government’s labour agency it was going to embark on a strike action starting next Monday.

The strike, according to labour group made up of health professionals was as a result of a failed negotiations between them and government over the approval of their condition of service.

However, in a court document cited by GhanaWeb.com, an Interlocutory Injunction has been granted, preventing the strike action from happening within the next 10 days.

Portions of the injunction signed by Frank Aboadwe Rockson, a Justice in the High Court of Justice Industrial and Labour Court in Accra, reads “it is hereby ordered the respondent herein by itself, its Executive Officers, members, agents, servants, employees and other persons are hereby restrained from embarking on its intended strike action on Monday the 21st of September, 2020.”

The GRNMA in its petition to the NMC had stated that beside the approval of its conditions of service, government has also not heeded to the payment of allowances for frontline health workers and insurance, which were promised as part of incentives in the fight against Covid-19.

Meanwhile, a group known as the National Association of Registered Midwives Ghana made up of practicing midwives in public health facilities in the country has distanced itself from a strike action planned.

According to the group, they were not consulted in the decision making and referred to a pledge made in 2017 “not to resort to strike action as a way of pressing home demands for improved conditions of service as the absence of midwives in health facilities endangers the lives of innocent pregnant women and their unborn babies.”

Read below the Interlocutory Injunction secured by the NMC and the petition it had earlier received from the GRNMA: