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GCNet staff began a sit-in strike Thursday as part of efforts to get management to pay for their exit packages.
A resolution by the Staff Welfare Association to initiate a series of class actions against his management was followed beginning Thursday, September 24, 2020 until further notice.
According to the workers, this is to insist on their demands for immediate payment of “dismissal packages to the personnel dismissed according to the Arbitration Award.”
Also read: GCNet loses arbitration, ordered to pay staff dismissal
A three-member arbitration panel under the auspices of the National Labor Commission (NLC) ruled in favor of around 150 Ghana Community Network Services Limited (GCNet) employees over a layoff dispute with GCNet.
Accordingly, the arbitration panel has ruled that GCNet is obligated to pay each staff member a severance package in accordance with company policy “without any adjustments or variations.”
“The effective date for the dismissal is August 31, 2020 and this will be the last day of employment of the affected personnel with GCNet,” the panel said in a ruling dated September 4, 2020.
The arbitrators appointed by the NLC and the two parties were Mr. Charles D. Antwi, Ms. Anita Wiafe Asinor and Mr. Paul Osei Mensah.
Termination
GCNet was an information technology company that used to facilitate commercial services in the country’s ports and had a government contract until 2023.
In April this year, the government terminated the contract, which caused the closure of its operations in May this year.
The government canceled the contract to allow the full deployment of a new customs clearance system, Uni-Pass, which according to the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), would centralize the processing and handling of all import and export documentation, a system known as a single window cleaning system.
As a result of the termination of the contract, GCNET decided to lay off some of its staff and consequently notified the Labor Director of their possible layoff.
Human resources policy
The documents presented at the arbitration hearing showed that GCNet had a Human Resources Manual that obliges it to use a certain formula to pay its staff during a layoff exercise.
In view of the redundancy exercise, GCNet management and the Staff Association signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to implement redundancy in accordance with the Human Resources Manual.
As a result of the Memorandum of Understanding, GCNet management issued termination letters to affected personnel with redundancy scheduled to take effect on August 31 of this year, but payment must be made before June 30 of this year.
Dispute
According to the ruling, two days before the deadline for the severance package payment, GCNet management wrote to the Employees Association that it could not pay for the package and requested a renegotiation of the severance pay as stipulated in the Employee Manual. Human Resources.
This led to a dispute that ended at the NLC, and the two parties agreed to voluntary arbitration.
GCNet case
In GCNET’s case, the HR was a collective agreement, but the Staff Association was not a registered union and therefore, under the 2003 Labor Law, it could not enter into a collective agreement with the company.
In light of that, GCNET argued that the MOU it signed with the staff association was void and therefore non-binding.
In addition, GCNET argued that it did not have the funds to pay for the severance package listed in the HR Manual on the basis that the government of Ghana had not yet paid compensation for the termination of the contract, while it had not guarantee that the government would. even pay compensation.
Staff case
The staff association, for its part, presented a case that the HR policy or manual were the employment conditions developed by GCNET for all its staff, which it had been implementing since it started operations and, therefore, was binding on the company. .
In addition, it argued that according to article 21 (1) (e) and article 24 (3) of the 1992 Constitution, freedom of association was guaranteed and there is no law that establishes that every association must be registered.
In addition, he argued that the government of Ghana had agreed to pay compensation to GCNet for repealing the contract and that the compensation would include the staff dismissal package.
Decision
The arbitration panel agreed with the staff and held that GCNet must pay for the termination package listed in the Human Resources Manual because the termination package was already predetermined.
He argued that the memorandum of understanding between the Staff Association and GCNet was for the implementation of the redundancy exercise and not a negotiation of the redundancy package because that was already contained in the Human Resources Manual.
“In fact, we found that there has been no severance pay negotiation during this firing exercise,” the panel said.
The panel also rejected GCNet’s claim that it did not have the ability to pay for the severance package.
“We found that GCNet is entitled to compensation is entitled to claim compensation from the Government of Ghana and such claim will include severance pay to be made to staff,” added the panel.
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