Migration Of All Workers Onto SSSS - It'll Not Happen Sept

Mr George Smith-Graham - Chief Executive of the FWSC,

The government’s promise of completing the migration of public sector workers onto the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS) will not materialise in September.

Figures at the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) show that only about 70 per cent of public sector workers would have been migrated by the end of September, after the Civil and Local Government Service Association, Ghana (CLOGSAG), some members of the medical profession and some senior and junior members of the universities have been migrated.

The Chief Executive of the FWSC, Mr George Smith-Graham, attributed the delays primarily to the extensive processes involved in building consensus on the grading structures for the new SSSS between the FWSC and labour unions.

“The challenge of reaching a consensus on the grading structure is the biggest. Until a consensus is reached on a grading structure, you cannot make any head way,” he told the Daily Graphic.

The Deputy Secretary General of the Ghana Trades Union Congress (TUC), Dr Yaw Baah, agreed with the assertion.

He explained that some groups within institutions that had requested for a job re-evaluation sometimes still disagreed with the results of the exercise.

When that happened, administrative processes were resorted to, to correct any controversies surrounding the particular job on the grading structure.

He said the jobs then had to be taken individually and any controversies on the evaluation of that particular job had to be settled administratively, and that exercise was technically challenging, requiring a lot of time and agreement from partners.

On May 1, this year, at the May Day parade and celebrations, the Vice President promised that processes to migrate public service workers onto the SSSS would be completed by September.

Meanwhile, the FWSC is to write to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MOFEP) on the agreed job categorisations within the Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU) that are to benefit from the 15 per cent retention salary for the sector.

TEWU, at their 10th Quadrennial National Delegates Conference in Kumasi last month, hinted of an industrial action to back home their demands on government to pay the 15 per cent retention premium.

The retention salary was agreed to in March, this year to help retain teaching staff in the educational sector.

For members of TEWU, who were not all teachers, Mr Smith-Graham said the agreement was for those with jobs that related to teaching or impacted on teaching to enjoy the allowance and these job classes had been identified.