The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has called on government to enforce the Minimum Wage Act, to ensure that employers did not pay workers below the stipulated wage. The congress believed that the reluctance of employers to pay the minimum wage was not because they could not afford it, but rather due to the fact that government was not enforcing the Act to the letter. According to TUC, some of the public sector workers were still earning incomes below the national minimum wage. The congress said at its recent meetings with the District and Regional Councils of Labour in all the 10 regions of the country, it came up that workers in some of the district assemblies were receiving salaries below the national minimum wage. “The national minimum wage is higher than the national poverty line. Therefore, if there are still public sectors workers who are poor, then it is true that some agencies in the sector are paying below the national minimum wage,” the congress noted. TUC appealed to the district assemblies concerned to stop violating the national minimum wage regulation. The congress said it would work with the Local Government Ministry to address the issue. In a related development, Dr Yaw Baah, Director of Research of the TUC, during a forum at Koforidua in the Eastern Region expressed worry over the fact that many workers, especially in the district assemblies, were receiving salaries far below the minimum wage. “It is appalling to note that the minimum wage, which is only GH¢67.5 per month is not being paid by employers, especially those in the government sector, with the district assemblies as the worse defaulters,” he lamented. Dr Baah said it was not enough announcing increment in minimum wage without monitoring to ensure that employers adhered to it and urged government to as a matter of urgency see to it that workers had what was due them. According to Dr Baah after series of meetings with union members in most of the regions, it came to light that most of the assembly workers and those in the tourism industry were not paying the minimum wage. Touching on the public sector salary reforms, he noted that about 23 percent of public workers in Ghana lived below the poverty line and were the least paid in Africa except for Zambia. In that direction, Dr Baah disclosed that government, TUC and the Ghana Employers Association (GEA) had agreed on a 'living wage' to make life comfortable for Ghanaian workers. He explained that the new living wage policy would consider four persons including a spouse and two kids in the payment of salary and urged union workers to be committed to their work while the TUC pushed for the well-being of Ghanaian workers. The forum was part of a regional interaction with members of the TUC to solicit their inputs towards the annual congress to be held in August. Source: Daily Guide