The Secretary-General of the Ghana Federation of Labour (GFL), Mr Abraham Koomson has criticised Organised Labour for calling off its intended strike planned for October 10, which was aimed at protesting the government’s failure to combat illegal mining (galamsey).
Organised labour said it called off the strike after the government announced new measures to address the crisis, including the suspension of a legislative instrument that permits mining in forest reserves.
Government had also deployed military forces to combat illegal mining in the forests and along the rivers of the country.
Secretary General of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) Joshua Ansah on Wednesday said the strike was called off because the President had also directed the Lands Minister to submit a request to Parliament for the revocation of L.I. 2462 as they were demanding from the government.
However, Organised labourt is facing significant backlash following its decision to soften its stance on the mining crisis.
Speaking on Power Kasiebo on TV XYZ, Mr Koomson whose group forms part of Organised Labour said he did not expect Organised labour to suspend the strike based on mere “promises” from President Akufo-Addo.
He said the leadership of the workers group was not united enough to take a decisive position on illegal mining which is having serious health implications on millions of Ghanaians.
“I think Organised Labour is disorganised and the structures needs to work,” he lamented and explained that the situation was critical and that a similar fight by the government failed because of corruption.
He expected Organised Labour to wait for the results of the government’s strategies before softening its stance on the industrial action.
“We saw how the government tackled this crisis in the past, we saw how it failed so I was not expecting our people to back down on mere promises from the government,” Mr Koomson lamented in Akan as he pointed that Organised Labour will lose credibility for taking such a decision.
UTAG
Meanwhile, the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) has broken away from Organised Labour’s stance, announcing its own nationwide strike, which took effect on October 10.
The strike action was announced in a statement after UTAG members in all its 15-member universities voted online on the matter. About 77 per cent of members voted to support the strike action to get the government to act decisively to halt all forms of mining activities in the country to safeguard forest reserves and water bodies.
National President of UTAG, Mr. Mamudu Akudugu, expressed disappointment with Organised Labour’s decision but said it was not unexpected.
“I think every Ghanaian is disappointed, and UTAG also rightly so. But of course, the truth is that we already knew that this may happen, and so we stayed close on glue to our internal processes, and we saw that we are not twiddling in any way,” Mr Akudugu said in an interview with Joy News.
“We are duty-bound to show leadership. And so for everybody to even conceive and think that we are doing the bidding of a political party, it is a very big insult to the intellectual community of the country, and we take an exception to that,” he said.
Source: Myxyzonline.com
