We can’t meet 60% base pay demand

The Government has stated that it cannot meet the 60 percent increase in base pay being demanded by Organised Labour.

The Deputy Minister for Employment and Labour Relations, Bright Wereko-Brobby, said the government is only willing to offer Organised Labour a 15 percent increase in their base pay.

“If we could meet that [demand] we would have given it and this banter won’t be happening,” Mr Wereko-Brobby said on Eyewitness News on Citi FM Wednesday evening.

Mr Wereko-Brobby added, “We have tabled 15 percent…for now, that is what we have tabled. I am not part of those who do the mathematics and all that, but that is what we have tabled.”

Despite the government’s plea for organised labour to accept the 15 percent increase in the base pay, the Deputy Secretary-General of the Trades Union Congress, Joshua Ansah, has also stated that they will not back down on their demand for a 60 percent increment.

“Compromise for what, there is no compromise. Our 60 percent still stands as it is, and there is no compromise. 60 percent in real terms is less than 18 percent and if care is not taken and inflation goes up today or tomorrow, then it is reducing further,” Mr Ansah said after a meeting with the government on Wednesday ended in another stalemate

The negotiations between the Government and Organised Labour over the proposed 60% increase in the base pay of public sector workers were adjourned indefinitely after both parties failed to reach a consensus during Wednesday’s meeting.

Organised labour is demanding a 60% increase in the base pay on the single spine salary structure to compensate for an unstable economic climate and high inflation.