Collaboration for productivity guarantees job security, better pay – ICU chief scribe
The General Secretary of the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU), Mr. Solomon Kotei has called for high collaboration between unionised staff and management of the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL) to ensure high productivity and guarantee job security.
Ensuring high productivity, he said, calls for innovation as workers cannot stick to their old ways of doing things especially as change has become the order of the day.
“If the way we have been working, we continue to work the same way as we have done over the past 10 years, then we shouldn’t look for different results as change keeps coming,” Mr Kotei told a durbar of staff and management of GCGL on Thursday, at which a nine-member executive of the GCGL branch of the ICU was inaugurated.
New executives
The new union leadership is chaired by Mr. Henry Addo. Other members are Mr. William Ashaley - Vice Chairman; Rosalind Amoh K. Amoh – Secretary; John Kojo Montford – Assistant Secretary; Salomey Boahemaa – 1st Trustee; and Augustine Andoh – 2nd Trustee. The rest are Ama B. Apenteng – Women’s Organiser; Samuel Tei Adano – Youth Organiser; and Timothy Mensah – Executive Member.
Mr Kotei said collaboration was key if GCGL was to continue to lead the industry and remain profitable.
“I’m saying this before Graphic group of companies because we know, as trade unions we have the mandate to ensure that your welfare and your social and job security are protected by us. However, as unions we always have the capacity to know that where our members have been able to work so hard, collaborated with management and indicated what ought to be done better,… collaboration where things that we can do to seal the economic leakages and financial leakages in business, we need to contribute that as union as well, (and with) management giving us a listening ear, we should be able to bring a new change to change everything about us, including our pockets.”
Win or lose together
Mr Kotei reminded the workers to be guided at all times by the fact that their welfare depended on the promotion and wellbeing of the company, and “if every staff of Graphic fail to dream, fail to think and fail to eat Graphic, obviously we are going to fail.”
He said as an institution and industry, the Graphic group and newspaper industry has a major challenge where the activities of segments of the society continue to erode the profit margins and undermine the industry to the detriment of its workers and managers.
Industry in peril
According to Mr. Kotei, an unhealthy development has emerged in recent times where newspaper vendors allow the reading public to read copies of papers they are supposed to sell for a fraction of the cover price, retain the newspapers and later return them to the publishers as unsold copies.
To worsen the situation, he said the electronic media, ‘which he called number one enemy,’ also prefer to read virtually every detail of stories in the papers in the name of newspaper review, thereby whetting the appetite of would be newspaper buyers and render the desire to buy needless.
Mr. Kotei challenged the workers and their new leadership to dream new vision to provide the critical leadership that will ensure that Graphic remains in business and remain profitable.
Open door administration
The Managing Director of GCGL, Mr. Kenneth Ashigbey said management was ever ready to sit with Union to charter a common cause and achieve the ultimate corporate goals, which calls for cooperation rather than antagonism.
He said grievances are better addressed on the table rather than taking matters to platforms that seek constantly to take away the business of the company, saying that staff need to be aware that media houses that would prefer to blow otherwise internal matters of GCGL, do so solely for their parochial interests – “to take away your bread.”
The MD assured the staff of an open door administration and encouraged all to table their challenges for redress no matter how minute, to ensure that the way is clear for all and sundry, saying the company will continue to reward hard work and innovation.
A number of staff were rewarded for hard work and others for long service, receiving cash prizes, varied products and certificates.