The Health Services Workers Union (HSWU) of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has urged health workers to move beyond traditional savings and begin making deliberate, long-term investments towards their retirement to ensure financial security after active service.
The union explained that workers could no longer afford to focus only on meeting their immediate financial needs while neglecting the future, particularly their retirement.
The General Secretary of the HSWU, Franklin Owusu Ansah, said the union had established an HSWU Fund, a Tier Three pension arrangement that provided members with an opportunity to turn their collective financial strength into long-term economic security and wealth creation.
“It is time to move from a culture of reactive welfare to a culture of planned financial security and sustainable wealth creation,” he said.
Mr Owusu Ansah, who was speaking in Accra at the climax of activities marking the 82nd anniversary of the HSWU, said the theme reflected the union’s desire to broaden the traditional understanding of trade unionism from negotiating salaries and conditions of service to also protecting the economic future of members.
The anniversary was held on the theme: “Securing Our Future Together: Harnessing the Power of HSWU Fund (Tier 3) and Collective Unity for Sustainable Wealth”.
It was attended by members of HSWU and representatives from global and sister unions from African countries.
Pension security
The Secretary-General of the TUC Ghana, Joshua Ansah, said the HSWU Fund was a commendable initiative that demonstrated the strength of collective action in helping workers prepare for life after employment.
He urged the union to continue strengthening the fund as a trusted instrument for securing the future of its members, while congratulating the HSWU leadership and members on sustaining the union over its 82-year history.
Pension contribution
A former Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Health Sector Occupational Pension Scheme, Dr Derek Amoateng, called on trustees, fund managers and custodians to handle workers’ pension contributions professionally and transparently, stressing that every contribution represented someone’s future.
Participants in the event
He also advised workers to be deliberate in understanding their pension arrangements, checking their Tier One, Tier Two and Tier Three contributions and ensuring that their records and nominated beneficiaries were accurate.
Dr Amoateng, who is also a gynaecologist at the University of Ghana Medical Centre, said workers must not depend entirely on their children for financial support in retirement as children were ‘not Tier Four pensions’.
“A pension contribution is not money that has been taken away from you. It is a salary that you have decided to pay ahead to your future self,” he said.
He urged organised labour to broaden its negotiations beyond take-home pay to include financial security for workers in retirement.
He described retirement planning as preventive medicine for their finances, adding that the three-tier pension system provided workers with an opportunity to supplement their mandatory pension arrangements through Tier Three, a voluntary provident fund and personal pension arrangement supported by tax incentives.
He advised workers to increase their pension contributions whenever their salaries increased, rather than allowing lifestyle expenses to consume the additional income.
Dr Amoateng further called for a broader national conversation on pensionable earnings, since workers could contribute faithfully for decades but still receive inadequate retirement benefits if only a small portion of their earnings was considered pensionable.
