MINE WORKERS WORRIED ABOUT DISPARTIES IN SALARIES (SEPT 16, PAGE 21)

MEMBERS of the Ghana Mine Workers Union (GMWU) of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) have expressed concern about the wide salary disparities existing between the expatriate workers and their Ghanaian counterparts.
The union stated that analysis indicated that the remuneration of AngloGold Ashanti executive members was 289 times as high as the lowest mine worker who risks his life on the job and in the same vein. an executive of Gold Fields Ghana Limited, earns 201 times the income of the lowest paid mine worker.
According to the union, in AngloGold Ashanti, the minimum salary of a mine worker was US$262.00 per month which was about 340 times less the salary of the highest paid executive member in Ghana.
The National Executive Council (NEC) of the GMWU which made the observations at its meeting at the Eusbett Hotel in Sunyani, also noted that in AngloGold Ashanti, the average expatriate salary was US$19,586.00 per month compared with the Ghanaian senior officer who earned US$711 per month and doing the same or similar job.
In their resolution signed by Messrs Prince William Ankrah and John K. Brimpong, the General Secretary and National Chairman, respectively of the union, the NEC further observed that in AngloGold Ashanti, an average rent allowance of US$15,000 per annum was paid to top Ghanaian management staff at Gold House in Accra, stressing that “the Management of AngloGold Ashanti continued to drag its feet in our effort to negotiate a fair rent allowance for non-accommodated unionised members at its Obuasi and Iduapriem mine sites”.
Again, the union argued that between 2007 and now, some management staff in the industry, including those at Gold Fields and AngloGold Ashanti, had had their emoluments adjusted by 100 per cent while a 24.5 per cent increase demanded by unionised workers over a three year period to bring the minimum basic pay of the mine worker to US$500 was considered “outrageous, unrealistic and unsustainable”.
“The above picture is seriously untenable and cannot be tolerated by the GMWU of the TUC any longer. Accordingly, the GMWU will use every means at its disposal to ensure fairness and equity in the reward landscape of the mining industry in Ghana”, the NEC cautioned.
According to the resolution, the NEC noted the long and protracted 2009 wage/salary negotiations between the GMWU and the two South African-based mining companies namely, AngloGold Ashanti and Gold Fields due to their “insensitive, selfish, parochial interest and the lack of social equity conscience”.
“The NEC thereby mandates the leadership of the GMWU to use any means at its disposal, including nationwide miners’ strike action to press home its demands by the close of this month”.
According to the resolution, “The situation where expatriates occupy positions which can be competently occupied by Ghanaians can no longer be tolerated. The NEC, therefore endorses the efforts being made by the Government and the Minerals Commission to address the issue”.
The union called on the regulatory bodies concerned with expatriation to seriously monitor the influx of expatriates into the industry and that, “the GMWU shall resist any attempt to bring in any expatriate whose skills are available in the industry”.
The resolution said, the NEC was saddened by the deplorable road network and infrastructure deficit in the mining communities and, therefore, reiterates its earlier calls on the Government and the mining companies to tackle the problem, adding that the NEC was particularly concerned about the state of the Tarkwa-Ayanfuri, Tarkwa-Huni Valley, Prestea, Bogoso, Tarkwa and Obuasi urban roads, among others. 
The NEC also expressed regrets that, employees of the Ghana Consolidated Diamonds (GCD) at Akwatia, had not been paid for the past two years and therefore, appealed to the Government to speed up the divestiture implementation programme and make available money from the consolidated fund to pay them their outstanding severance and entitlements to ameliorate the sufferings and pains that those employees and their families were going through.
  The resolution emphasised that NEC was concerned about the situation where mines folded up without meeting their contractual obligations to their employees and so recommended to the Government to legislate the establishment of an escrow account similar to the reclamation bonds which mining companies were required to post as part of their legal requirement in operating a mine to cater for employees’ benefits in the want of unforeseen mine closures.