The National Labour Commission has ordered the management of Vodafone Ghana and the Communication Workers� Union to resume negotiating their dispute over compulsory redundancy and report back to the commission by Monday, August 24.
The commission gave the order after meeting the workers, a meeting the management of Vodafone failed to attend. Both parties had earlier been invited to the meeting, following a complaint lodged by the union.
The public affairs officer of the commission, Mohammed Affum, told The Heritage that the dispute was being given priority attention due to the fact that the telecommunications sector is an essential service where industrial action is prohibited by law. Asked if the negotiations failed to resolve the dispute, what would be the way forward, Mr Affum said the dispute would then be resolved through �compulsory arbitration�.
Last month ending, Vodafone announced that 950 workers of the company were expected to go home at the end of November under the company�s compulsory redundancy programme. This, according to the company, would ensure that a new organizational structure came into being by December 1, this year.
But the umbrella Trades Union Congress took major issues with Vodafone, crying that the conglomerate had not followed due process and subsequently hauled it before the labour commission.
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