VALCO employees refuted management’s assertions that they had turned down a pay raise of 22%.
The management’s press release claiming that employees have rejected compensation increases is untrue, according to Mr. Courage Nunekpeku, the local union youth representative for VALCO, who spoke on Starr Today on Wednesday.
How someone you work for will prefer to harm you or make you appear foolish in public, rather than caring about your welfare.
What they release is not the problem.
We entered into negotiations and came to an understanding that they would reinstate us, which is VALCO policy.
It relates to the dollar-to-cedi exchange rate.
“For instance, if my salary was GH¢1,989 which would be $337 dollars. It means that now that the dollar has shot up to GH¢12 our salary should automatically increase. So this has been the norm since 2010 between management and us since the restoration policy was instituted. Then management scrapped it without letting us know,” Mr. Nunekpeku explained.
He continued: “So when we raised the alarm or concerns to the Chief Executive Officer, he promised us that he was going to work on it. That he has instructed the Human Resource Director to work on it. Later we met the Board and they were also of the opinion that that was the best way to go and that it will be addressed in September.”
Mr. Nunekpeku added that mathematically the increase in their salary cannot be 22 percent as management has put out in the public domain.
According to him, what management is demanding per the rate of dollar is GH¢4 to the dollar instead of GH¢12 adding that the workers have even reduced it to GH¢10 to the dollar but the management is adamant.