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Tema Port Workers on sit down strike
Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, Ghanadot
Accra, June 1, Ghanadot - Following
the fiasco of the management of the company to dutifully
organise a referendum to determine whether the Maritime and Dock
Workers Union (MDU) or the National
Union of Harbour Employees (NUHEM) has
mandate of the workers, Workers of the
Ghana Dock Labour Company Limited (GDLC) at the Tema Port have
embarked on a sit down strike.
According to the General Secretary of NUHEM, Mr. J. J. Jebuni
the workers have decided not to go to work until they have been
allowed to exercise their franchise as to which union they want
to belong to.
He explained that the action of the workers numbering over 2,679
should not be seen as a kind of demonstration or strike action
since they are prepared to go back to work as soon as they are
allowed to vote.
Ghanadot gathered that the referendum was to enable the acting
Chief Labour Officer, Ms. Elizabeth Hagan to make an informed
decision as to which of the two unions could hold the Collective
Bargaining Certificate to bargain on behalf of the workers.
The workers, became infuriated on that fateful morning when
after 10:00am , neither officials of the Electoral Commission
(EC) or GDLC had turned up to allow the referendum to take place
and therefore decided not to go back to work, saying “No
referendum, no work”.
Alhough, the workers did not cause any destruction of property
or life, a joint police from the Tema Regional Police Command
and the Police Headquarters was called to ensure that there was
law and order and also to urge the
workers go back to work.
The police personnel at the scene used water cannons, rubber
bullets, tear gas and even live bullets to disperse the crowd
leading to some of the workers sustaining various degrees of
injury while others were apprehended by the police and
manhandled.
The police personnel had cordoned the premises of the GDLC to
prevent the workers from entering the premises excerpt for those
who were prepared to go back to work.
Investigations reaching Ghanadot from the GDLC show that workers
of the company for many years have been with the MDU , but
decided over a year ago that they no longer wish to be with
them, but rather they wanted to join NUHEM, because the MDU did
not have their interest at heart.
This brought about acrimonies between the workers and the
management and so the issue had to be sent to the office of the
Chief Labour Officer at the Labour Department for an amicable
settlement.
Therefore after series of meetings, it was agreed that a
referendum be conducted to allow the workers to determine which
of the two unions they want to join.
In a letter dated April 1, 2008 , signed by the acting Chief
Labour Officer and copied to the two workers unions, Ms
Elisabeth called for the conduct of the referendum to “Enable me
make an informed decision as to the Union which should hold the
Collective Bargaining Certificate on behalf of the workers”.
However, the executives of MDU cautioned the Labour department
on its action of authorizing the referendum.
Their reason was that they did not understand
why the intended referendum
was to take place because they had no
information on the resignation of members from their union.
They stated in a letter dated April 3, 2008 and signed by the
general secretary of the Union , K. Owusu Afriyie that the call
for the referendum has the tendency to undermine their union as
well as to pitch one union against the other and called on Ms
Elisabeth to ensure the continuous unionization of all the
casual workers at GDLC under MDU , because they have been under
them since the inception of the company.
The acting Chief Labour Officer wrote back to MDU to explain the
rationale behind the referendum saying that where two or more
workers union lay claims to majority of workers in a given
company, her outfit in accordance with the Labour Act, 2003 (Act
651) had always conducted referendum to determine who has the
majority.
After series of meetings and correspondences, the acting Chief
Labour Officer ordered for the exercise to be conducted last
Thursday, May 28, 2009 at the GDLC premises.
On Thursday last week however, the workers turned up as early as
5:00am to exercise their franchise but no official from either
GDLC or the EC turned up, neither did the workers receive any
notification as to whether the exercise had been postponed or
cancelled.
And therefore after waiting for quite a long time, they decided
not to work if they were not allowed to vote and that was when
the police were called in to intimidate the workers.
Ghanadot
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