General Secretary of the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union, ICU, Solomon Kotei has asked Public Sector Workers not to be dismayed by the Socio-economic circumstances of the time which, to him, are after-effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Responding to calls for a boycott of the May Day ceremonies by a section of public sector workers, due to difficulties in the system, Mr. Kotei said May Day is still relevant and worth celebrating because it serves to remind Ghanaians and workers of the need to continue to fight for economic Justice and the need to uphold workers’ rights at the work place.
“Even though as a country we have not been able to make the desired progress that we want for ourselves, that cannot take away our birthday. When life happens you have to celebrate it. Workers should be able to hold themselves together and put our challenges behind us and so after 1st May celebrations, then we can come back to the table and continue the unfinished business of things that will bring us out of our woes.”
“So we will not say that the relevance and the significance of celebrating May Day is a thing of the past. No, not at all, it will not. Either than that, it will come to a point where they will say it is no more important to celebrate even our Independence Day. Look at the globe, every country celebrates its Independence Day, and the day that labour begins experiencing its freedom is this 1st May as celebrated over the world so its significance, you cannot downplay it.”
“Workers might say the day should not be celebrated because in the face of pain and difficulty with the last 3 years, we have not seen proper salary increases okay, because from 2019 to 2020 when Covid-19 struck, negotiations from 2019 to 2020 were not even undertaken at all which is through no fault of the employer nor government nor labour itself. Our members have been educated enough to take note that we are rather now in the New Normal and therefore if the economy or for that matter market prices get hiked, but our incomes have remained where they are we agree and identify that that’s all of us are in the same soup. But for God’s sake and for the fact that May Day is a global celebration we can’t take ourselves out,” he said.
The ICU General Secretary explained the rational for selecting the theme; “economic recovery amidst Covid 19’’ for this year’s May Day.
“The devastating effect of COVID on the economy especially when we take the aspect of employers maybe the typical one is what happened to the tourism sector. The tourism sector had to come to a sudden closure and workers could not even put their pieces together and salaries had to be reduced by 50 percent, some even up to 75 percent. Some hospitality centers were actually closed down.”
“These were immediate shocks that came on us. Then the government had to come in and swallow a lot of the issues like the free electricity, free water which of course me and you are going to pay. But its net effect is that we have only deferred the responsibility of the price to pay now.”
“So the recovery of our economy should be the feeling for everybody. At least in Ghana, we are looking at it that the businesses must survive. The businesses must be sustained hence the appeal and cry for some collaboration and sacrifices of both of us (employers and employees) to make sure that all of us have a future,” he added.