By Gifty Adjei
Workers of GBC will from the end of July 2023, receive their full salaries, including the stopped allowances and money deducted from the salary.
This followed when the Lawyers for Fair Wages and Salaries Commission, prayed the High Court in Accra that the Commission has corresponded with all the relevant institutions involved in the payment of salaries and emoluments to reverse its earlier instructions.
The Fair Wages and Salaries Commission unilaterally directed the Controller and Accountant General’s Department to remove some allowances and also deduct from the salaries of staff those allowances already paid to them beginning from their May salaries.
Team GBC was led by its union executives to the High Court to witness the case which is now between the National Labour Commission and the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission. Some months ago, the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission alleged that it had done what it called payroll monitoring exercise, which it said detected some allowances that workers of GBC were enjoying illegally.
The Fair Wages then unilaterally removed those allowances. When workers of GBC announced a roadmap for an industrial action, the Fair Wages then sent the matter to the National Labour Commission. The panel of commissioners at the National Labour Commission, upon hearing from all the stakeholders involved, directed that the Fair Wages rescind its decision immediately.
Fair Wages failed to comply with the directive, and the National Labour Commission sent the matter to the High Court to enforce its directive. Appearing before her Ladyship Mrs, Ananda Akins, this morning at the Accra High Court 2, the counsel for Fair Wages and Salaries Commission told the court that the Commission has taken all the necessary steps to restore the allowances stopped and money deducted. Counsel for the National Labour Commission argued that alleged steps taken by the Fair Wages have not been reflected yet.
Mrs. Ananda Akins, in her judgment, struck out the case but assured that if July’s salary does not reflect the steps taken by the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission, the National Labour Commission should inform the court.
Counsel for the National Labour Commission, Effiba Amihere, and the GBC Divisional Union Chairman, Sam Nat Kevor spoke to GBC News after the hearing. Both say they are happy with the progress thus far.
