<<Print>>

Mr. Asamoah Mensah, Western Regional Senior Industrial Relations Officer of Construction and Building Materials Workers, has said there was so much discrimination against construction workers working at the Aboadze Thermal Plant and other parts of the country. His comment follows a demonstration organised by some construction workers against the management of SM Power Tech, a sub-contractor at the Aboadze Thermal Plant undertaking electrical works at the T-2 expansion project. Mr. Asamoah Mensah told the Ghana News Agency that construction workers employed by sub-contractors at the Aboadze Thermal Plant were not issued with their pay slips while their Social Security contributions were not paid. He added that most of such contractors dismissed their employers at any least opportunity with impunity without regard to the labour laws of the country, adding that the contractors refused to pay the workers� height allowances, and workman�s compensation when they fall down from high height. He said the National Labour Commission (NLC) had been informed about these blatant human rights abuses meted out to the Ghanaian workers and added that he had personally visited the site with Madam Elizabeth Acquah, Western Regional Labour Officer, yet these sub-contractors were unperturbed and not prepared to negotiate with the workers on better remunerations. He said more than 1,000 construction and electrical workers employed by these sub-contractors were maltreated and appealed to the NLC to apply the law against the defaulting companies. Mr. Mensah mentioned some of the defaulting companies as SM Power Tech, Woolim Plant and Engineering, Foosun IL-Kwang, Ires Company and four other sub-contractors working on the expansion project at the Aboaadze Thermal Plant. He said though the workers worked more than eight hours a day and 27 days a month, their allowances were not paid in full as stipulated in the contractual agreement and advocated that the Executive Instrument 34 of the labour law which spelt out worker's right should be observed. He appealed to workers who are being discriminated against in any part of the region to contact the CBMWU for redress.