The President of the University of Ghana chapter of the University Teachers Association of Ghana, UTAG, Prof Ransford Gyampo has slammed the government's posture following organised labour’s insistence to carry out its strike action from Thursday, October 10.

The government on Monday, October 7, expressed surprise at labour’s decision to embark on its anti-galamsey strike in a statement signed by the Information Minister, Fatimatu Abubakar.

In the view of the government, at the President's high-level meeting with organised labour last week, it put forward a number of steps to meet their demands and thus found their position now to be surprising.

But speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on Tuesday, Prof. Ransford Gyampo rather expressed surprise at the government’s reaction.

He said organised labour was not automatically going to accept the position of the government hook line and sinker merely because it agreed to meet with the President.
He noted that as long as organised labour is dissatisfied with the government’s response to the national emergency, going on strike is in order.

“I am surprised that Fatima says she’s surprised at the response of labour. We didn’t ask them to come and meet the President and swallow hook line and sinker whatever the President was solving. They went to listen and came back to us and we said no way. If the government is serious a simple temporary moratorium on mining so we all sit to dialogue will be the way to go.
But they’re talking about when Parliament reconvenes, and we are going to collaborate with labour to fight galamsey, how? We’re going to ask that special courts be set up, meanwhile, people are dying.

Prof Gyampo said they expected the government to take immediate action to suspend small-scale mining activities before any focus on long-term measures.

“People are dying today, so why won’t look at the current issues so that we look at the other long-term interventions” he quizzed.

People are dying, so why don't we stop the death now, then we can talk about other long-winding propagandist interventions later. And I am surprised that they're saying they are surprised at labour. The kind of leadership of labour unions today they're not zombies and the kind of constituent bodies of organised labour don't swallow things hook line and sinker. And so if partisan foot soldiers are the ones who do these things and so the Minister was expecting we were going to swallow whatever was told us by the President hook line and sinker, I am sorry for her.”

Organised Labour at its emergency meeting on Monday to announce its official position after the recent meeting with the President said the notice of strike remains unchanged.
Labour has three key demands including a declaration of a state of emergency on the country’s water bodies and forest reserves, revocation of Legislative Instrument 2462 which permits mining in forest reserves, and the deployment of the police and military to forest reserves and river bodies where illegal mining is rampant.

There have been attempts by some groups and persons to politicize organised labour’s impending strike largely due to the timing of the action, but the leadership insists that it is only fighting in the national interest.

“People are politicising the galamsey issue. I think that Organised Labour is coming clean with a good decision that this is a nationwide issue, it is affecting everybody in the country and we should stop politicising this issue" Secretary-General of the TUC, Joshua Ansah said.

“All that Organised Labour is calling on the government to do is to ensure that all political parties, be it NPP, NDC whatever, you come and sign a pact on their position on this menace that is killing this very country. When that is done and you go out there politicising it, people will see how hypocritical you are and they will not mind you,” he added.
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