Bank Of Ghana Staff To Resume Work

Workers of the Bank of Ghana (BoG) have resolved to resume work. The decision followed the intervention of the Chief Advisor to the President, Mrs Mary Chinnery-Hesse, after a meeting with representatives of the workers.

A statement issued after the meeting at the Castle, Osu, yesterday said the agreement was that ongoing negotiations concerning all matters tabled for discussion would be expedited and the outstanding issues resolved in the shortest possible time.

It was agreed that the results of the negotiations would be communicated to the Office of the Chief Advisor not later than one month from the date of the statement.

The statement was signed by a representative of the BoG management, the chairman of the Senior Staff Association (SSA) and the ICU General Secretary and witnessed by a representative of the Ministry of Manpower, Youth and Employment.

Workers of the BoG on Monday withdrew their services to demand an improvement in their remuneration and service conditions.

Their key demand was for the senior staff to be allowed to negotiate with management for service conditions.

The workers, comprising senior and junior staff, who wore red bands around their necks, hands and wrists, converged in front of the bank amidst singing and dancing to 'jama' songs on Monday.

In strict obedience to the orders of their leadership, they refused to disclose the cause of the demonstration to journalists.

However, Daily Graphic investigations revealed that some of the staff were unhappy about the refusal of the management of the BoG to give sufficient loans to the workers, while those in senior management were alleged to have taken fat loans to acquire vehicles.

There were other reports which suggested that staff members of the BoG were excluded from the re-denomination exercise.

The utterances and songs of some of the senior staff members who took turns to address their colleagues indicated that they felt their rights were being trampled upon by the management.

One senior staff member said they did not want “a master-slave relationship at the bank”.

Tunes, such as “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery” by Bob Marley, “This is the day that the Lord has made” and the national anthem were sung repeatedly by the striking staff.

The demonstration started at about 8:30 a.m. and management and leaders of the SSA and the local union of the bank were deadlocked in negotiations for more than two hours in an attempt to call off the strike.

At about 11.00 a.m. the leaders came out of the negotiation and the Chairman of the SSA, Mr Ben Dufuor, told the members that they had told the management that the senior staff should be given the right to negotiate with the management on behalf of the rest of the workers for service conditions, with or without the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).

Story by Graphic reorters