Government agrees to pay labour 15% Cost of Living Allowance from July 1
Cool heads have finally prevailed as Government and organised labour negotiations yielded positive results and have agreed on a 15 per cent cost of living allowance for members of organised labour.
Various worker unions, including the four teacher unions, the Ghana Medical Association, and the Public Sector Workers Union, among others, demanded the payment of 20 per cent of their basic salaries as Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) due to the current economic situation in the country.
Four unions; CCT, GNAT, NAGRAT, and TEWU embarked on industrial action to insist on their demands after a deadline given to the government elapsed and the strike dragged on for over two weeks.
Fortunately, after a crunch meeting on Thursday, July 14, 2022, both parties came to a conclusion on a 15% COLA, which will take retrospective effect from July 1, 2022.
The Employment and Labour Relations Minister, Ignatius Baffour Awuah, reading out the terms of the agreement, said “We agreed with the labour unions that the COLA will be paid at the rate of 15% of base pay, that the effective date for the payment of the COLA will be 1st July 2022.”
“We also agreed that all industrial actions underway and threats of same will be called off immediately and that labour will return to work.”
