Vodafone staff are asking management of the company not to compel them to patronize the retirement package introduced for staff who plan to willingly give up work. The workers accuse their employers of violating an agreement, which stipulates that staff should not be stampeded into signing up to the package. The voluntary retirement package is part of a restructuring process being undertaken by the company. Joy News’ Bernard Saibu who has been monitoring events at Vodafone reports the workers are unhappy. In an interview with Joy News, the workers said their supervisors have been instructed by management to do everything possible to ensure that a lot of them patronize the facility. They accuse their supervisors of resorting to intimidation in an attempt to get them to subscribe to the package. When the package was announced in March this year, some workers who spoke to Joy News, were excited at the bulky sums of money they would carry home. Now however, they seem ironically opposed to it as explained by the Chairman of the Communication Workers Union, D.K. Clottey. Before the takeover, Ghana Telecom had always had a programme in place aimed at providing an exit strategy to staff members who no longer wanted to be with the company and want to trade their expertise elsewhere; either in other sphere of business or to set up their own private businesses. This was, however, stalled because Ghana Telecom then could not provide special packages to facilitate the process. The disengagement package being offered is to enable all 4,088 workers of Vodafone to retire voluntarily. It is calculated by adding three months’ salary of every year served, multiplied by the total number of years the staff has been employed at Vodafone. Management has, however, denied the charge. Head of Corporate Communications and Customer Care at Vodafone, Major (Rtd) Albert Don Chebe, said the management is only offering a voluntary package which workers could decide not to sign to. Source: Joy News/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana