Ghana Railway Workers Union To Celebrate International Worker’s Day

Organized labor will on Wednesday 1st May be celebrating international worker day.

This day insured that workers worked for 8 hours and had rest, other than previously, when there was no rest; this was achieved after long struggle.

In Ghana the celebration is under the theme '' sustainable pensions: the role of social partners.

It is from this theme that we as workers of Ghana railway Co. Ltd draw great inspiration from having analysed the theme, we have come to the conclusion that for us to have a sustainable pension, the following are here by resolved

1.     We are calling on Ministry of Railways Development as matter of urgency to work towards COMPLETE award of contract for the Revamping of the Western Rail Line. The piece meal approach to that stretch of line is not acceptable to us. The only way to sustain the operation of Ghana RailWay Co. Ltd is to revamp the entire Western Rail Line.

This Rail Line has commodities such as Bauxite, Manganese, Cocoa, Cement and others. The haulage to the Takoradi Port and other places has ensured the survival of the Company since time past.

The benefits that these Commodities when hauled by Rail will bring are so enormous that we find it extremely strange that this line has not been revamped till date. These are some few benefits the revamping of the Western Rail Line will bring.

a.     Ensure longer life span of roads in the Western Region to save Governments from frequent building of such Roads.

b.     Ensure elimination of Carnage on the Road by bigger Road trucks.

c.      Creation of the employment to the teaming youth.

d.     A revamped RailWay will result in less green house gases.

e.     Help reduce drastically the over reliance on the central government for financial support.

2.     We wish to state that thou the Ghana Railway Company Ltd is a Limited liability company, it is hundred percent (100%) owned by the the state with no share holders and therefore the welfare needs of the company should also be of interest to the state and not the company alone.

3.     We call on management of the company to ensure that the collective agreement which has expired since July 2018 and negotiation has since been on- going should be brought to a finalization now. This is the only way workers pensions can be sustain instead of the current low level of salaries in the company.

4.     We acknowledge the alacrity with which the Ministries worked on the Eastern Rail Line project. We wish same for the Western Rail Line, our only hope of survival.

We wish to state once again that the above will be the only way we can have a sustain pension and we are ever ready to support the state in this direction.

FOR: GHANA RAIL WAY WORKERS UNION

         GODWILL NTARMAH

         GENERAL SECRETARY

 

 

Source: Railway Workers Union