The National Labour Commission (NLC) would on Wednesday, September 16, give judgement on whether the management of Vodafone Ghana violated the labour law in issuing letters to employees earmarked for compulsory redundancy.
The Management of Vodafone on Wednesday September 9 issued letters to individual workers asking them to prepare to go on compulsory redundancy by December 2009.
Mr David Korley Clottey, National Chairman, Communications Workers Union (CWU) of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), told the GNA: "We have petitioned the NLC to determine the legality or otherwise of management's action."
The CWU resorted to the NLC when an inter-ministerial intervention into the matter a few weeks ago, failed to yield an amicable resolution.
On Monday, September 14, a tripartite meeting between the CWU/TUC, the management of Vodafone Ghana and the Ministry of Employment and
Social Welfare also failed to yield any tangible results.
While the union accused management of flouting all decisions and agreements at the inter-ministerial meeting and also of the Standing Joint Negotiation Committee (SJNC), management on the other had accused the union of refusing to play ball and deliberately playing delaying tactics to throw the redundancy exercise out of gear.
Major Albert Don-Chebe, Head of Corporate Communications of Vodafone, told the GNA that since the inter-ministerial meeting, management had written at least four letters inviting the union to a consultative meeting to explain the details of the exercise to them but the union had refused to turn up for any of the meetings.
He showed at least five letters to the GNA indicating that on August 24, 2009 management invited union to a consultative meeting on August 26, 2009; again on August 26, 2009 a letter was written to union to remind it of the consultative meeting, but they failed to turn up.
On August 28, 2009 management wrote to union inviting them to a consultative meeting on September 1, 2009; another reminder was sent to union on September 1, 2009 but again union refused to show up for the meeting.
"We then wrote to the Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare later on September 1, 2009 informing them of union's behaviour and our intention to carry on with the redundancy exercise as planned," he said.
Major Don-Chebe said the union was deliberately employing delaying tactics to prevent management from making use of the current legal provisions in the Labour Law and the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) to carry out the exercise.
He explained that the law required of management to notify the NLC four months ahead of any redundancy exercise, "which we did last July"
and affected persons should be notified three months ahead of time "which we did last Wednesday".
"But because the CBA had already been negotiated in December last year and can only be renegotiated in December 2009, the union wants to delay the exercise so that by December 2009 they can renegotiate and change the rules.
"We are not waiting for them to determine the future of this company because the company is making losses and we have a business plan to turn
around the fortunes of the company in two years, ending 2010," he said.
Speaking of a business plan, Major Don-Chebe said the union also demanded to be given a copy of the company's business plan but management refused on the grounds that since some of the union members would be going on redundancy the danger was that they could give out Vodafone's business plan to competitors.
Mr. Clottey also told the GNA that at the inter-ministerial meeting, it was decided that management should meet with the union at the SJNC level, and not in a consultative meeting, to discuss the details of the redundancy exercise before letters were issued to affected persons.
He explained that the union refused to turn up for the consultative meetings because whereas decisions at the SJNC level were binding,
decisions at a consultative meeting were not binding.
"But management has refused to meet us at the Standing Joint Negotiation Committee level and yet they are carrying out the exercise in
contravention of the decisions and the labour laws of the country," he said.
Mr Clottey noted that the Sales and Purchases Agreement (SPA) between Vodafone and government said redundancy could be carried out
between now and December 2010, "so why is management rushing to lay off 2,000 people this year alone?" he asked.
"We know from other Vodafone operations that Vodafone is anti-union and they will do any and everything to break the back of workers' unions
just to have a field day in every country they operate in," he said.
Mr Clottey said the attempt to kick out the leadership of the CWU at Vodafone was evident of the fact that Vodafone did not want to have meaningful engagement with workers on matters of concern to them.
He said the union had insisted that management needed to be considerate of the social impact of the exercise and should therefore ensure that the exercise was carried out in the fairest manner.
"As I speak with you now there are cases where married couples working at Vodafone have both been given redundancy letters without
consideration of what becomes of their future when both of them are not working.
"The CBA also says people on study leave, pregnant women and other categories of workers must be spared but management has disregarded all
that."
Mr. Clottey expressed the hope that the NLC would take the full impact of the exercise on affected persons into consideration in arriving at their judgement.