Library Workers on Strike for Three Months

For more than three months, staffers at the Ghana Library Board have been on a national strike, shutting down all public libraries.

As the Ghanaian Chronicle editorialized, “[N]othing has yet been heard from the sector ministry about what government intends to do for the system to be reactivated and made more efficient and buoyant, for the benefit of the reading public.”

The newspaper acknowledged that the library board's pay structure “is one of the worst in the civil service” and found “absolutely nothing wrong with their demand.” Beyond increased, pay, the library needs money for new materials and better storage.

“We suggest that with the government's current decentralization policy, perhaps libraries should be handed over to the district authorities,” the newspaper said.

“Whatever the case is, something drastic has to be done now to save our public libraries from total ruin. The workers should be persuaded to return to work whilst the facilities should be improved so that our libraries become centers of learning and not repositories for decaying and antiquated books and publications.”