[ 2015-05-02 ]

ADB management adopting intimidating tactics – workers allege
The standoff between management and staff of the
Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) has taken
another twist as workers accuse management using
the police to cow them.

The workers have locked horns with the management
following the latter’s decision to sell off its
head office building for 10 million dollars while
it rents a place for one million cedis a month.

The workers together with their umbrella body,
Union of Industry Commerce and Finance Workers,
have been negotiating with the management on the
issue, but the workers tell Joy News they are
angry, alleging that their management last night
hired armed policemen to intimidate them at a
vigil held to express their disapproval of the
sale of the bank's head office.

The workers say they cannot cooperate with a
management that uses force to frighten workers.

General Secretary of Union of Industry Commerce
and Finance Workers (UNICOF), John Esiape tells
Joy News the workers had only gathered around 8pm
to “console and comfort one another”.

They were also using the gathering to prepare
towards today’s May Day event, “only to be
surrounded by heavily armed police personnel,”
he said.

The police, he claimed, told the workers that they
were sent by management to come and protect the
company’s property because they learnt the
workers were planning to “destroy property and
burn down the head office”.

Mr. Esiape said but for the workers who were
neatly dressed, quiet, and comported themselves,
things would have turned nasty.

Meanwhile, President John Mahama has asked the
Employment and Labour Relations Minister to
mediate the impasse.

But labour expert Danso Acheampong said
government’s intervention should be the last
resort. The workers’ union should be allowed to
engage management to resolve their difference, he
advised.

He condemned the use of the security forces to
intimidate the workers as an "unfair labour
practice".

Source - Joy News

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