The Minister of Labour, Employment and Job Creation, Emmanuel Kwadwo Agyekum, has pledged to work with the National Labour Commission (NLC) to strengthen its operations and ensure that labour disputes are resolved fairly and, as much as possible, without recourse to the courts.
He said the ministry would work with the commission to address its staffing, financial, regional and infrastructure challenges to make it more accessible to workers and employers.
Mr Agyekum made the pledge when he paid a working visit to the NLC in Accra last Wednesday.
He said the NLC had an important role to play in maintaining a harmonious labour environment through dialogue, negotiation and mediation.
“The reason why I’m saying this is I read your mission statement, and I read your vision, and I think that is the way we should go. We should dialogue. We should negotiate,” he said.
The minister said the ministry was ready to work with the commission to achieve measurable results and improve the resolution of complaints brought before it.
He said everyone who appeared before the commission should be given a fair hearing, regardless of who lodged the complaint or was the subject of it.
Resolve disputes at NLC
The minister said efforts should be made to resolve labour disputes at the commission rather than allow them to proceed to court.
He said the NLC had accumulated 21 years of experience in handling labour disputes, providing an opportunity for the institution to learn from past cases and improve its processes.
Mr Agyekum said the ministry would work with the commission to identify and address challenges affecting its effectiveness.
Staffing, regional offices
The minister said the government would have to consider expanding the commission’s presence in the northern part of the country to make its services more accessible.
He said the distance people had to travel to access the commission could discourage workers from pursuing legitimate complaints.
He said the ministry would engage the Minister of Finance on the financial challenges confronting the commission and explore ways to strengthen its operations.
Mr Agyekum said an additional office in the north could help bring the commission’s services closer to people who otherwise might have to travel long distances.
550 complaints yearly
The Executive Secretary of the NLC, Dr Bernice Welbeck, said the commission received an average of 550 complaints a year involving between 750,000 and one million complainants cumulatively.
She said the commission used facilitation, mediation, arbitration and adjudication to settle industrial disputes.
Dr Welbeck said disputes arising from the termination and dismissal of employees accounted for a large proportion of the cases handled by the commission.
She said the NLC, which had been in existence for 21 years, currently had four regional offices in Tema, Kumasi, Takoradi and Bono, although the Bono office was not fully operational because of staffing constraints.
Challenges
Dr Welbeck said staffing remained one of the major challenges of the commission.
She said while the commission was expected to have 147 personnel across the head office and four regional offices, it was currently operating with fewer than 50 staff.
She said some staff had exited through resignation or death and although clearance had been obtained from the Public Services Commission to replace some of them, financial clearance was still outstanding.
Dr Welbeck also drew attention to inadequate office and hearing space at the commission.
She said the situation reduced the number of hearings that could be conducted and sometimes required industrial relations officers to use their offices for facilitation.
She said some offices accommodated three or four people, resulting in overcrowding that had forced some staff to occupy emergency exits, an issue raised during health and safety audits.
