The Management of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) says the Authority adheres strictly to labour laws and regulations concerning employee severance benefits.
The GPHA said this in a statement in response to some former casual workers who were laid off over two decades ago, threatening to picket at the premises of the Tema Port to back their demands for compensation.
The statement signed by Mrs Ester Gyebi-Donkor, General Manager, Marketing and Corporate Affairs, noted that the GPHA handles each case of separation from service with due diligence and according to the terms and conditions outlined in the employment contracts and relevant labour legislation.
‘The recent assertions made by the aforementioned group and their threats of intended demonstrations are baseless and not supported by factual evidence.’
It noted that as much as demonstrations were constitutional rights, they came with equal constitutional and other statutory obligations, reminding the group that the judgement on the cas
e by the Supreme Court had not been overturned and, therefore, legally, the GPHA does not owe them any severance pay.
‘We would like to remind the members of this group that the Port enclave is a security zone and, any attempt to unduly disrupt operations will have security implications.’
Stating the facts surrounding the layoff of the casual workers, the port authority noted that in 2001, the government of Ghana, upon advice from the World Bank, decided to reform the ports to improve service delivery and take advantage of regional growth in shipping, adding that in doing so, a large share of port operations, which were hitherto handled by the port authority, were ceded to private operators with the needed resources to provide quality service to customers.
It added that having ceded most of its operations, the GPHA had to reduce its staff numbers immediately, noting that while some of these staff opted to join some of the private operators, others elected to go home, indicating that some were permanent
staff while others were casual staff.
‘Not all of them were permanent staff, though; some were permanent staff, while others were casual staff. Yet, each of these personnel was given huge sums of money as compensation,’ it stated, adding that ‘for the permanent staff, two options were tabled for their consideration: (a) An early voluntary retirement and (b) compulsory retirement. The beneficiaries considered the package for early voluntary retirement for permanent workers as more attractive that it was oversubscribed to the extent that no worker was compulsorily relieved of his or her responsibility as a condition for the second option.’
It explained that as casual workers (Dockers), their employment was daily, and therefore they only worked and got paid when there was a job available to be executed for that day, adding that they therefore had no rights to claims for permanency of work or any long service or retirement benefits no matter how long they worked in the ports as casual labourers.
‘The Author
ity, out of its magnanimity, decided to pay them a certain sum out of goodwill (a handshake in our parlance) for their service.
‘Please note that the Authority was not under any obligation to do so as compared to permanent workers. Aside from that, a well-structured Port casual labour company was formed to assimilate them seamlessly to continue their work as casual dockers.’
According to the GPHA, despite this, the group, after receiving the ‘handshake,’ was not satisfied and instituted an action at the High Court against the Authority, adding that the matter travelled to the Supreme Court, and they lost.
‘However, not satisfied, they invoked the review jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and again lost. (See Bonney and Ors (No. 1) v. Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (No. 1) [2013-2014] SCGLR 436 and Bonney and Ors (No. 2) v. Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (No. 2) [2013-2014] SCGLR 457,’ it added.
Source: Ghana News Agency