He said there was the need to decentralise the activities of the commission to ensure that the needs of a lot more people were met.

Some of the petitions, he stated, could be resolved at the regional level and would not need the parties to travel all the way to Accra.

Mr Asamoah, who was speaking at the 10th quadrennial delegates conference of the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU) in Kumasi, said at certain times, the amounts involved in some of the disputes were such that by the time the petition was dealt with, some of the petitioners did not receive any benefits.

Quorum

According to him, due to the lack of a quorum during some of the hearings, the parties had to visit the office more than once to have their petitions heard.

He expressed the belief that the establishment of regional offices would lessen the travel time, as well as the time spent on cases and bring great relief to feuding parties, particularly those from the hinterlands.

Although he was not specific, he said the commission was looking at setting up at least four regional offices to deal with labour-related issues from outside Accra and was of the view that this would not come at extra cost to the government.

According to him, the government would make use of existing structures in the regions and second some staff from the Attorney-General (A-G’s) Department to those offices to make them functional.

He thus appealed to the conference to “help me help you.”

Workplace safety

In a related development, the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Mr Ignatius Baffour-Awuah, announced that the ministry had developed an Occupational Health and Safety Bill to compel employers to develop a health and safety policy for their staff and ensure that the workers were conversant with the policy.

Currently, he said, the bill had been sent to the A-G’s office for comment and would soon be sent to Cabinet for approval before being laid in Parliament for passage.

The bill, according to the minister, was to ensure that employees were protected against workplace hazards and also to take care of their health while in the employment of their companies.