BOST sets tone for industrial harmony; signs collective bargaining agreement with senior staff
After 12 years of inconclusive discussions on a collective bargaining agreement (CBA), the management and senior staff of the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company Limited (BOST) has finally reached a truce.
Conseqeuently, the two parties have signed the agreement with a commitment to complete and sign same for junior staff in a week.
The long wait had always been a major bone of contention with the phenomenon always causing inflamed passions.
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The disagreements have often resulted in the termination of the appionments of managing directors of the company.
But after the signing ceremony, the Managing Director (MD) of the company, Mr George Mensah-Okley, explained that agreeing to a policy document to outline the entitlements and disciplinary procedures for the regulation of employer-employee relations was key to the success of every company.
He expressed satisfaction at the process of streamlining labour relations so far and was confident that BOST was on its way towards becoming a world-class company.
Speedy execution
The Chairman of the Board of Directors, Mr Ekow Hackman, for his part, thanked all stakeholders for the speedy execution of the assigned task of developing standard conditions of service agreement for BOST.
He urged the union to continue engaging their members to give of their best in seeing the BOST dream to fruition.
He said it was only when the workers committed to their tasks that the goals of the company could be achieved in full.
Mr Hackman also applauded the efforts of the management under the leadership of the current MD. for making progress in the company’s operations in just a year.
Outlining some of the achievements, he said, he was so far satisfied with the progress of work made at retrieving BOST pipelines which had been left in the United States of America for close to 12 years after procurement.
He said he was hopeful that the pipelines would be shipped to Ghana by September, 2019 and work on the new Tema-Akosombo pipeline would be completed to augment the company’s revenue streams.
Mr Hackman further disclosed that adverts for expression of interest had so far been published by BOST on the gas terminals and the Akosombo-Kumasi Pipeline Projects.
Local union
The Chairman of the Senior Staff Association, Mr Abdul Jallil, commended the company’s good leadership which had resulted in the accomplishment of a task which had been outstanding for close to 12 years.
He also advised the board of directors to ignore faceless petitioners who hid behind emerging communication technologies to harm the reputation of the company and further assured management of the support of the union in working towards the achievement of the BOST dream.
ICU’s position
The General Secretary of the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union, Mr Solomon Kotei, also praised the board and management of BOST for the bold step towards securing the present conditions and future of the employees.
“This is the way to go and we believe that this document will serve as a reference point to motivate staff for higher performance and to see the company achieve its targets.”
He urged management to be proactive and review the document as conditions in the general economy changed to ensure that the staff of BOST were not worse off.