TUC official says workers should blame their managements

January 18, 2011
Ho, Jan 18, GNA - A trade unionist has said it was clear that jobs of staff of some public sector organizations might have to be re-evaluated for their proper placement on the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS).   

This is because workers of these organizations, including their managements, were uninformed about the importance of those data and took the initial exercise light-heartedly.

    
Mr Gordon Bodza, Volta Regional Industrial Relations Officer (IRO) of the Ghana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) was speaking to the Ghana News Agency on Tuesday on labour agitations characterizing the implementation of the SSSS.

    
He said as a result some workers' jobs might have been devalued leading to their low placements.

    
Mr Bodza said when organizations were invited to send administrative and accounting staff for training they treated the invitation flippantly and sent staffs that were unable to appreciate the import of the exercise.

    
"For them it was the usual wine, wine, and dine, dine and nothing more, not even a report back to the organizations they represented," Mr Bodza said.

    
He said the process from the planning stages to now had been very transparent so that beneficiary institutions would own the outcomes.

    
Mr Bodza said it was therefore strange for some workers to blame the Fair Wages Commission (FWC) for what they perceived as low placements, when they should be blaming their managements.

    
He said it was also strange for management staff to queue behind workers to complain, when all managements from the scheme of things were expected to move in tandem with the process and educate their workers.

    
Mr Bodza said incomes management was a very complex area of all businesses and that academic qualification was not the sole determinant of the level of remuneration.

    
He said a recent statement, gleaned in the media, which sought to question why a degree holder should be earning lower than a Senior Secondary School leaver was uninformed and an aberration.

    
Mr Bodza said the exercise had exposed the management weaknesses in the public services.

    
He said, for example, many organizations did not have schemes of work and movements up the ladder were made without the requisite update in skills.

     
Mr Bodza suggested that organizations should employ staff with the skills to manage the SSSS.

    
He said the SSSS was a landmark policy that was long overdue to correct disparities in pay and conditions of service within and across the public service institutions for the much needed increases in productivity.

    
Mr Bodza said the exercise should therefore not be disparaged by anybody's inaction or dereliction of duty.

GNA