Too many job losses in the private sector - TUC

Accra, Aug 07, GNA - Mr Kofi Asamoah, Secretary-General of the Trades Union Congress, Ghana(TUC) has said more attention is needed to solve the growing loss of jobs in the private sector.

He said current data shows that thousands of workers have been declared redundant and others dismissed without recourse to laid down procedures.

Mr Asamoah said this at the 9th regular quadrennial delegate conference of the Construction and Building Materials Workers Union (CBMWU) of the TUC.

He said leaders of workers have suffered dismissals and intimidation in the course of discharging their leadership and representative roles and urged government to fulfill its promise of making employment creation the centrepiece of its policies and the basis of a growing economy.

He said government must provide direct employment to the youth in priority areas such as Education, Health, Security, Housing, Sanitation and Transport infrastructure adding “we think that the only credible basis for measuring our collective performance as a nation is through providing jobs and income security”.

Mr Asamoah appealed to government to investigate what caused the alleged huge rise in the public sector wage bill in the midst of the several concerns of workers on low pay and delays in implementing other related matters on the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS).

He appealed to politicians to be circumspect in their utterances and actions to ensure political stability in the coming elections.

Mr Pius Kweku Quainoo, who was re-elected as the General Secretary, called for the formation of a Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) akin to the Cocobod whose responsibility would be policy formulation on the industry.

He said government should not regulate and supervise itself and the CIDB should define the roles of the client, the prime contractor, sub-contractors and workers at all sites.

Mr Quainoo also called on government to exempt workers from paying tax on terminal benefits and “scale down on the high overtime rates applicable now”.

GNA