By Laudia Sawer
Tema, April 11, GNA – Mr Morgan Ayawine, the General Secretary of the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU), has urged the government to quickly reconstitute the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) Board, for Aluworks Limited to bounce back.
Mr Ayawine said even though the union had intervened, and an investor has been secured to take over the operations of the company, they were waiting approval from the SSNIT Board, which was yet to be reconstituted.
“It is hoped that the government would expedite the appointment of the SSNIT Board to complete the process for Aluworks to bounce back in the shortest possible time,” he said during the Tema Regional Conference of the ICU.
He indicated that Aluworks, which was a strategic investment that produced aluminium sheets for the construction and automotive industries, among others, had been left to shut down for lack of funds and government support to carry out its operations.
Mr Ayawine disclosed that Aluworks should have started work by January 2025 as agreed with the previous government, but due to the transition, it had been delayed, especially since the SSNIT Board was yet to be appointed to approve the investment.
Workers of Aluworks are said to have been at home since 2022, when the company was shut down.
Aluworks Limited is an aluminium continuous casting and cold rolling company that produces and sell semi-finished flat-rolled sheet products for the building, construction, and household industries in Ghana and West Africa.
Its principal products include coloured, plain, mill-finished or stucco-embossed, roller or tension-levelled aluminium sheets-in-coil; slit coils and flat sheets; aluminium discs; and roll-formed or corrugated sheets and ridges, as well as louvre blades.
Touching on other union-related issues, the ICU General Secretary said the tendency for some employers to resist the unionisation of their employees, contrary to the labour laws, was a
matter of great concern which must be addressed to uphold the fundamental human rights and freedoms of association of Ghanaian workers.
He advised the offending employers to desist from such practices, citing an example of a recent case of the termination of appointments of unionised staff of World Shoe Limited, under the guise of redundancy, without going through due process.
“We want to use this occasion to sound a note of caution to the management of World Shoe Limited to reinstate the workers whose appointments were terminated in the process of their unionisation and respect the laws of the land, or we shall advise ourselves as may be appropriate in the coming days,” he stressed.
Mr Ayawine added that, in general, there was the need for the government to formulate policies that would deal with the challenges in the industrial sector of the economy to create more jobs for the teeming unemployed youth, which would effectively address poverty and the upsurge of social vices in the country.
GNA
LS/CAA