Inequalities in mineworkers’ pay can’t continue – Ankrah
The Ghana Mineworkers Union (GMWU) says it will be ruthless in its fight against the vast wage disparity between expatriate and Ghanaian mineworkers in the country.
The General Secretary of the Union, Mr Prince William Ankrah, sounding the caution on Monday, revealed that some mining expatriate bosses of giant mining firms in Ghana“…receive salaries ranging from $450,000 to one million dollars a year, as against a minimum salary of $550 to $600 for a Ghanaian mineworker.
“Indeed, this trend of inequity cannot continue,” he said, during the opening of the Union’s National Executive Council’s meeting in Accra.
Mr Ankrah told the National Executive Council that the process of engagement with managements of the firms on the issue had become slow, and that it called for sustained protests.
Explaining the rationale further, he said, union members paid them to be creative and innovative in addressing their plight and that of their families.
“We owe our members decent standards of living, based on their efforts and skills.
The prevailing situation where the pay and benefit system in our industry seem to favour a few whites and selected top level Ghanaians in management roles, cannot continue.”
Mr Ankrah, therefore, called on the major mines in the country to come clean with the Union, in confronting the remuneration biases, in order to create a productive and humane working environment.
He said a balanced pay and benefit system had the potential to grow small and medium size businesses in the mining economies, such as Obuasi, Tarkwa and beyond, offer our struggling economy a strong revenue stream through payment of related taxes (PAYE), and above all, lead to a strong consuming environment in terms of purchasing power.
He called on government to support their fight on the situation saying, “we cannot in anyway keep quiet over this lack of egalitarian pay systems in our sector, and we are happy that our colleagues in the oil sector have also raised the red flag in recent times.”
Mr Ankrah, however, said honest and sustained partnership would be the first step to deal with the issue, and if that failed, radical sustained labour agitations followed by demonstrations and possibly strikes would be adopted.
Source: GNA