Policy to ensure workers dignity and respect needed – Trade unionist

A trade unionist has called for the formulation of an employment policy to guide employers to accord workers respect and dignity.

Mr Morgan Ayawine, Acting Deputy General Secretary of the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union in charge of Operations, told GNA in Tema that such a policy would help minimize rampant dismissals of workers.

He also said it would motivate workers to reciprocate the gesture by giving of their best to help increase productivity.

Mr Ayawine asked employers and labour unions to collaborate efforts to protect, improve and sustain jobs, in order to ensure industrial peace and harmony in the country.

He appealed to politicians to fulfill their campaign promise of creating jobs for the youth.

Mr Ayawine said the only way to reduce apathy, malingering, pilfering, absenteeism and other negative working habits, was for employers to give workers a “living wage,” to cater for their basic needs.

Mr Ayawine commended government for setting up a unit of the labour Commission in Takoradi to take charge of labour issues regarding the oil and gas industry.

He asked government to ensure that priority was given to Ghanaian energy experts in the management of the oil and gas industry.

Mr Ayawine expressed concern about frequent industrial accidents in recent times, and said that the nation could not develop if health and safety regulations at workplaces were flouted with impunity by employers whose prime motive was to maximize profit to the detriment of poor, unprotected workers.

He called on government to provide the Inspectorate Division of the Labour Department with the necessary incentives to enable it play effectively its supervisory role of ensuring that industrial establishments did not toil with the lives of their workers, but rather put in place safety and protective mechanisms to guide their employees.

Source: GNA