Vodafone asked to follow labour laws

5/08/09

Labour consultant (national)

Story: Musah Yahaya Jafaru

A LABOUR consultant, Mr Austin Gamey, has urged the management of Vodafone to let the terms of the company’s Collective Agreement (CA) and Section 65 of the Labour Act be the basis for its decision to lay off 950 employees.
He told the Daily Graphic that the terms of the CA should supersede all other provisions in dealing with issues affecting employer-employee relations.
Mr Gamey said Vodafone had the right to lay off workers for economic and technological changes, but said it was required to follow the due process.
He was reacting to the decision of the management of Vodafone to lay off 950 employees by the end of November, 2009, under the company’s compulsory redundancy policy.
The Chief Manager of Corporate Communications of Vodafone, Mr Isaac Abraham, told the press that the lay-off of the workers was to pave the way for a new organisational structure that would take effect on December 1, 2009.
However, the Secretary-General of the Ghana Trades Union Congress (GTUC), Mr Kofi Asamoah, was reported to have said that Vodafone’s decision to lay off the workers undermined the legal practices governing the country’s labour relations.
Mr Gamey said it was wrong for the company to enter into any individual agreements with workers on the issue of laying them off.
Rather, he said, there should be a collective agreement on the issue of disengagement of workers.
The labour consultant asked the management of Vodafone to liaise with the Human Resource and the Industrial Relations departments of the company to sit down with the leadership of the workers to follow through the CA and Section 65 of the Labour Act, which deals with issues of employer-employee relations.
He said they could report to the National Labour Commission in case of any difficulties in understanding the provisions of the Labour Act.
Mr Gamey said it was “painful” for anyone to be laid off, aside of its impact on the labour front and the national economy as a whole.
However, he said, “there is nothing wrong” if an employer wanted to embark on a legal disengagement of workers - within the terms of the CA and the Labour Act.
Mr Gamey urged both the management and workers to stay calm while the issue of dispensing with the services of some workers was being discussed.