The Deputy General-Secretary of the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU) in Charge of Operations, Morgan Ayawine, has reminded workers of the need to support their union leaders in the face of challenges from anti-union employers.
He maintained that trade unionism is critical for the protection of workers rights to help attain desirable outcomes at the workplace.
Mr. Ayawine urged all non-unionised workers including casual and contract workers to see the need to join trade unions for protection and promotion of their social and economic well-being.
He was speaking at the Ashanti Regional Council General Meeting of the ICU in Kumasi.
The meeting which was the first since the union held its 10th Quadrennial Delegates Conference in August last year, was to evaluate past performance and current developmental challenges and their impact on socio-economic well-being of workers.
The ICU Deputy General Secretary advised workers to solidly rally behind the union leaders to help surmount developments threatening trade union movement, especially workers’ rights in the era of anti-union employers.
Mr. Morgan Ayawine described the ICU as the most vibrant National Union among the Comity of Trade Unions in Ghana, which has been consistent in the protection and promotion of the social and economic well-being of members and Ghanaian workers in general through negotiations and dialogue.
These efforts notwithstanding, Trade Unions are still faced with the daunting task of Unionization of workers of some institutions as a result of stiff resistance from anti-union employers. He also blamed workers of such institutions for not asserting their fundamental rights to freedom of Association.
According to Mr. Ayawine, workers out of fear would allow their constitutional rights to be trampled upon with such level of impunity. He referred to the current, developments in the banking and financial sectors that have compelled workers of the seven collapsed banks at the eleventh hour to appreciate the role of unions in protecting their rights and asked non-unionised workers to see it as a wake-up call to take union issues serious.
The ICU also raised concerned about the unfortunate trend in the rural and community banking sector where chairmen of Board of Directors have almost hijacked the administrative functions of the banks from the General Managers and their management teams who are the technocrats in the day to day administration of the banks as it pertains in other jurisdictions.
The ICU Deputy General Secretary appealed to the Bank of Ghana to call the board chairmen to order and restrict them to their core role of policy formulation among other issues.
The ICU challenged the government to ensure successful implementation of its flagship projects, like the One District One Factory, One Village One Dam, One Constituency One Million Dollars because that can go a long way to reduce the unemployment situation in the country.
Mr. Ayawine also spoke on the Nation Builders Corp (NABCO), describing it as a bold initiative to deal with the unemployment canker.
He however urged government to clear the issue of the statutory deductions and payments of the NABCO beneficiaries, since these young workers would be in employment for three years.
