Labour Expert, Austin Gamey has accused the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) of not abiding by the rules of the National Labour Commission (NLC).
He said the Labour Act does not allow any employee to enter into a negotiation with its employer with a threat or intimidation in order to come to a peaceful agreement.
Speaking on Kasapa FM’s ‘Anopa Kasapa’ morning show with Fiifi Banson, Mr Gamey stated that both GMA and the government should appear before the commission in order to settle the dispute amicably.
He was of the view that there would be no end to the current tussle until both agreed to seek intervention from NLC.
“There are seasoned people who are in the commission who have the capacity and the know-how to negotiate. If it becomes necessary, they will look for other people to assist them and will be able to resolve the matter to the extent of satisfying both parties,” he suggested.
He further described the approach by the medical association in tackling the situation as inappropriate, saying, “I will like to call on my colleagues and friends in the medical fraternity to call off the strike and report the matter to the labour commission.”
Mr. Gamey bemoaned the effect of the misconduct of the two parties in dealing with the issue, and called on them to use the NLC as a tool in solving their differences.
“We have gone beyond our bounds as a people; I saw people on television gasping for breath in several hospitals. We have actually allowed ourselves to be sent to the slaughter house, this is unacceptable,” he said.
According to him, it will be proper for the doctors to resign now rather than later if they feel they had a case or head toward NLC to solve it amicably.
There have been calls by some high profile personnel for the doctors to resign considering the dissatisfied with government’s stance on their terms of conditions.
A notable one is the comment made by Dr Charles Wereko Brobbey, a former Chief Executive of the Volta River Authority (VRA), who asked for the resignation of the doctors if they do not call off the strike.
He said if the doctors were not satisfied with the outcome of the negotiations with the government, they should resign from the public health service.
Though he agreed that such comments were unnecessary, Mr Gammey stated that GMA were not using the correct approach to make their grievances known.
In a quick rebuttal, the General Secretary of GMA, Dr Justice Yankson, argued that there were some outstanding issues with NLC and were not ready to add this one to it.
According to him, they chose to use this approach because they had gone through all the channels which he said had still yielded no results.
“Over the years we have submitted ourselves to the labour commission and all their processes and at the end they give us a directive. NLC itself cannot enforce these decisions that have been given against government,” he said.
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