The three-day strike by the Worker Unions of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA), which hampered international shipping to and from Ghana, has been called off.
It came after, according to them, the letter from Meridian Port Services (MPS) that granted the GPHA a 20% share of gateway container traffic beginning on August 1, 2022, for the next two years, had its legitimacy established.
As a result, once the personnel resumed providing services to the Shipping Lines, the inbound ships Voileta B, Nikolas, Maersk Cunene, MSC Trieste, and Zim Pacific that had been stuck in Anchorage since Tuesday, July 12 were being docked.
Henry Kuivi, the chairman of the Senior Staff Workers Union, informed the employees that although the MPS's two-year allocation duration was unsatisfactory, they would accept it and work with the GPHA management to negotiate a better agreement that would allow for the allocation period to be renewed.
After being removed by police from the Marine Block within the port on Tuesday night, the employees gathered at the main entrance of the Tema Port, blocking the main parking lot and preventing vehicles from leaving the yard to drop off workers at other terminals.
Mr. Kuivi questioned how MPS was able to sign the document to transfer the 20% stake when the CEO of the business had stated for the previous two years that he had no authority to do so.
As a result of our care in checking the letter's legitimacy before we could inform our members of the strike's next steps, Mr. Kuivi remarked, "The strike continued into the third day since the letter handed to us by our Director General appeared ridiculous."
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While the unions have called for the 10-year exclusivity clause that grants MPS operating rights to the facility and excludes competition to be reconsidered to permit the 20 percent quota, The 20 percent share will continue for the next two years before ending, according to the MPS' statement to the GPHA Director General on Wednesday, July 13.
A decision that the labour unions fiercely stated they opposed and will try to have made renewable.
We have been in this struggle for the past four years, and while we will accept this new arrangement temporarily because it is better than nothing, Mr. Kuivi said, "We will monitor the implementation and if after the two-year period we may be compelled to use coercive force to get a renewal, we will."
As we wait until August 1, 2022, he said, "For now, we beg you to return to your work stations as we continue to push to guarantee that the modalities for the implementation will be made accessible within the following week."
Police Abuse
The Tema Regional Police Command sent officers to the port in response to the GPHA management's attempt on Wednesday night to persuade the employees to allow an oil tanker vessel, a fruit vessel container, and other containerized boats into dock.
The bulk of the employees complied when the Regional Operations Director, Supt. George Effah, informed them that they were at the port to take control and that they should leave. However, when the police insisted on enforcing the law, the situation deteriorated, leading to pushing and manhandling of the workers, which resulted in one of the workers, Ebenezer Mensah, collapsing to the floor and being taken to the GPHA clinic inside the port, where he eventually regained consciousness after several hours.
Another Marine Unit employee, Kwasi Adu, was similarly detained and mistreated before being freed as a result of a union official's intervention.
Mr. Kuivi called the police's actions callous and stated that the Unions will bring up the matter with the Authority's management. Mr. Kuivi said, "We are not hoodlums or thugs to have been treated in the way the cops did.
Mr. Kuivi said that the port is the working environment for the employees, and if "we have concerns as, his duty as a security manager is to guide us by providing the needed security as against the brute force applied as if we were on a rampage to destroy the Authority's property," he bemoaned. Mr. Kuivi directed their ire at the Port Security Manager, Col. Emmanuel Opare Nyante.
He did, however, issue a warning that if the police attack occurred again, the employees could be obliged to counsel themselves.