The National Labour Commission (NLC) has told Citi Business News, it is working to address some complaints made by former workers of Antrak Air to the commission.
Some of the workers who besieged the premises of Citi FM last week stated that Antrak Air owe them over 10,000 cedis in salary arrears, as well as outstanding transport allowances.
According to them, management asked all workers to go home for a period of three months to undertake some restructuring in 2015 after which they would be called back, but they have still not received any call.
They added that the company has since ceased operations.
Reacting to the issue, the Executive Secretary of the NLC, Charles Adongo Bawa Duah explained that the commission has received a petition from the workers and is using laid down procedures to address the issues.
“About 48 workers of Antrak Air petitioned the commission regarding their salaries and other entitlements they say is owed them by the company. Now what happened was that it is required by our procedure that when we receive the complaint, we make copies to the respondent in this case Antrak Air to respond to,” he explained.
He stated that the lawyers of Antrak Air however raised some legal objection to petition calling for it to put in a proper context.
“They brought a response, and in their response they raised a legal issue. This is because in the petition that the complainant filled and submitted, they referred to Alhaji Asuman Banda as the respondent. As a result the lawyers for Antrak Air are raising a legal objection to that effect that, it is the company which ought to be sued,” he said.
Mr. Bawa Dua assured that the commission has already taken steps to deal with the issue to commence hearing on the substantive matter.
“So the commission is going to deal with that legality and then the process will continue. Let me say that [with] the Labour Commission when we receive matters, we go through certain processes after we have received the response from the other side. We attempt to do what we call facilitation. That is the commission tries to bring the parties to see whether an amicable solution could be reached,” he observed.
He maintained that the commission’s main object is to settle labour issues amicably to prevent it from dragging.
He pointed out that all efforts is normally directed at ironing out differences to draw a roadmap to satisfy all the parties.
“If that fails, then the matter will be referred to the main body. The members of the commission themselves to hear the matter or they can also refer the matter to arbitration,” he said.
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(Via: CitiFM Online Ghana)
