With May Day fast approaching, the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission is urging caution as pressure mounts from organized labour for the implementation of a living wage.
Currently, the highest salary on the single spine structure stands at GHC13,000 while the lowest is just GHC300.
Organized labour says this wide gap defeats the original purpose of the Single Spine Salary Structure, which was introduced to harmonize pay and address inequalities in the public sector.
Organized labour lamented that his year, public sector workers saw only a 10% salary increase compared to 20% for staff in state-owned enterprises.
Ironically, many of these state agencies posted over 14 million cedis in losses last year.
The Secretary General of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Joshua Ansah argues that current pay disparities are eroding the purchasing power of Ghanaian workers.
“Many workers struggle with wages that barely cover living expenses, long working hours, inadequate benefits, poor conditions further exacerbate the challenges faced by the labour force,” he lamented
But the CEO of the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission, Dr. George Smith-Graham, is calling for patience.
“As a country, for the long term, we will target a living wage but even in the developed world not all countries have been able to implement a living wage and so implementation of a living wage is doable but let’s set a long term to plan towards it but not now,” he said.
He said the upcoming establishment of an Emoluments Commission by year’s end will provide a more sustainable solution to the wage gaps.
“We need to reform the public sector if not, it doesn’t matter how much money you pay people in the public service, the more you pay the salaries the more people take the salaries and will not work, a lot of the public sector organization people are not working,” he pointed out.
According to Mr Graham-Smith, “His Excellency the President is proposing the establishment of an independent emolument commission, when established it will end political interference in salaries setting, address article 71 office holders.”
This year’s May Day celebration will be held under the theme: “Resetting Pay and Conditions of Service – The Role of Stakeholders.”
As the day nears, organized labour insists that true reform in public sector pay cannot wait much longer.
