THE Ghana Mineworkers’ Union (GMWU) says the worsening power crisis and the ongoing load shedding exercise has resulted to the growing dismissal of miners across the country.
The National Chairman of the union, Mensah Kwarko Gyakari explained that the 25% power cut to mining companies recently announced by the Electricity Company of Ghana(ECG) would lead to more job cuts.
He told members of the GMWU’s National Executive Council (NEC) meeting Accra today that “it is going to affect the industry . We must handle this issue holistically , so that these challenges we are going through will stop”.
Mr Gyakari was quick to add that Goldfields Ghana Limited and Perseus Mining Ghana Limited have begun processes to lay off some workers after notifying GMWU of their intentions per the conditions of service agreement.
According to him, they must give the union three months notice and afterwards they can start with the exercise. We are going to sit down to discuss the numbers and the jobs that would be affected, Mr Gyakari stated.
The hike in cost of production and the continuous decline in the world price of gold has also been blamed for the decision of mining companies to lay off workers.
AngloGold Ashanti is reported to have laid over 4,000 workers on November 30th, 2014, while Newmont Ghana laid off 472 workers in September this year.
The General Secretary of the Ghana Mineworkers’ Union (GMWU), Prince William Ankrah noted that; “our end of year National Executive Council is being held a very critical stage in the history of our Union.
Indeed if anybody had predicted 20 years ago that the Obuasi Mine would shed members from 15,000 to 800 plus today one would have arguably considered it impossible.
This indeed buttresses the growing concern that planning and ability to look into the future and make some futuristic logical decisions are the imperatives that set great leaders apart from their mediocre peers”.
Mr Ankrah who opened the two-day meeting lamented the impact of this necessary but tough business AngloGold Ashanti made had had far reaching repercussions on the union in the area of membership density as well as finances.
He added: “These two critical areas can only be dealt with through rigorous membership recruitment drive. It also requires refocus on sound and rational financial management.
Although we have not done badly in the past, but the current situation makes it more compelling to restrict our spending patterns to ensure financial stability emanating from dwindling resources”.
However, Mr Ankrah and his colleagues mine workers believe that as their business ventures including Golden Pride Savings and Loan Limited are beginning to yield some returns.
They say will go a long way to augment any gab through dividends including possible future dilution of ownership to generate further revenues.
WIDE SALARY DISCREPANCY
Mr Ankrah drew the attention of management of mining companies and the government to the glaring pay of benefit system in the industry and its ugliness in character.
He explained: “Historically there was a bankrupt notion that when mineworkers are well paid , they are likely to stop work and go on a spending spree thus creating shortage of labour.
This crude notion perpetrated by the European owners placed the pay level of mineworkers at the lowest ladder on the pay benchmarks.
This situation could be described as nefarious to the extent that public sector pay levels were higher than that of the mineworkers”.
This unfortunate situation the General Secretary of the GMWU noted however, was that even though the union had made inroads over the years to reverse this ugly pattern the trend is still disturbing and thus require some sensible interventions.
According to him, there were instances where mining expatriate bosses in charge of some big mining businesses in Ghana receive salaries ranging from 250 thousand US$ to I million US$ a year as against a minimum salary of US$550 to 600 for a Ghanaian minework. Indeed , this trend of inequity cannot continue, he stated.
The prevailing situation where the pay and benefit systems in our industry seem to favour a few white and selected top level Ghanaian in management roles cannot continue, Mr Ankrah lamented.
He therefore cautioned all the major mines in Ghana to come clean with them in confronting this remuneration biases in order to create a productive and humane working environment.
African Eye News.com
