9 September 2008
editorial
Early this year, workers of the Ghana Railways Company (GRC) embarked on a long strike action to demand better condition of service. Their decision affected companies such as the Ghana Bauxite Company (GBC) and Ghana Manganese Company (GMC) who were depending on the GRC for the haulage of their minerals to the Takoradi seat port for export.
On several occasions, both GBC and GMC warned the striking workers that if they did not go back to work to continue the transporting of their products, they would be compelled to use other alternative means. Despite this warning, coupled with several appeals by the government and civil society groups for the workers to go back to work, they stuck to their position and refused to call off the strike.
Later, the government had to give in to the demands of the railway workers and settled their salary arrears. Even with this gesture from the government, it took them some time before the workers called off the strike. A news item carried on page 13 of the paper today, shows that government will no more pay the salaries of the over three thousand workers of the company. Management has now been urged to pay its workers from their own internally generated funds.
Unfortunately, the contract for the haulage of both bauxite and manganese from GBC and GMC respectively, which was the main source of revenue for the company, has been abrogated as a result of the long strike action by the workers. The headache of management now is how to raise money to pay salaries since the company does not have any source of income, apart from the haulage of the aforementioned minerals.
The Chronicle admits that strike action is a legitimate weapon that every worker can use to secure better conditions of service, but it must be used in a responsible way. When both GBC and GMC issued a stern warning that they would be compelled to use other means to haul their products if nothing was done about the strike action, it should have pricked the minds of the workers to know that they would be shooting themselves in the foot, if nothing was done about the strike action, but this did not occur to them.
Now, the government, which was paying the salaries, has decided to pull out. The only means that could have bailed them out was the haulage of the minerals for GBC and GMC, but that opportunity too is lost. As we indicated earlier, strike action is a legitimate weapon in labour matters but workers of the GRC used it at the wrong time and they are now paying dearly for it.
We do not think anybody can blame the government for refusing to pay the salaries of the workers. In fact it would have been bad economic decision on the part of the government to continue paying workers of a limited liability company from the consolidated fund when they are not generating any revenue for the government.
When GBC and GMC started protesting to the leadership of the workers, maybe they should have allowed staff who were in charge of the haulage to resume work, as negotiation for better condition of service continued. They ignored this and even went to the extent of kidnapping some of the workers who decided to go to work. The Chronicle does not think GRC workers can now blame their management for failing to pay them at the end of the month, because they also contributed to the problem.
The harm has already been caused, but we do not think the situation is so hopeless that the government cannot intervene. Hauling bauxite and manganese on our roads have their own adverse effects and could affect the nation in the long term. The Chronicle, therefore, appeals to Prof. Ameyaw Akumfi and the government to intervene by making sure that the haulage business contract is returned to the GRC. When this happens they would be able to start generating their own internal funds as envisaged by government.
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