More than 360 petitions have been received by the National Labour Commission (NLC) between January to September this year, as against 543 cases in 2020.

The petitions filed mostly by employees centred on unfair termination of appointment, retirement/End of Service Benefits, unpaid salaries, workmen’s compensation, medical and redundancy.

Similarly, the NLC also settled a number of industrial actions with regard to removal of managing directors, review of condition of service, issues of migration onto single spine structure and failure of negotiation.

The Executive Secretary of the NLC, Mr Ofosu Asamoah, told the Ghanaian Times in an exclusive interview in Accra last Friday that the trend suggested that there would be significant reduction in the cases this year.

He said labour disputes kept growing over the years, but the current situation showed a fall in the trend, adding that the reduction in recorded cases was as a result of education to the public on labour issues in the country.

Mr Asamoah said the Commission, as of September 10, had settled 101 cases including nine summary dismissal,16 unfair termination, retirement /end of service benefits, eight unpaid salaries, five redundancy, 26 unfair labour practice, four dismissed for lack of merit,15 for want of prosecution, four re-instatement.

He said the NLC also received complaints such as absenteeism and failure of employees to give notice to employers before resigning from their workplaces.

Mr Asamoah said a worker must give a month’s notice to an employer before he or she could resign from the workplace.

“The complaints from workers to the Commission represented about 95 per cent whereas those from employers against employees constituted five per cent of the cases,” he added.

He said when the Commission received such complainants, they invited both parties to resolve the issues, explaining that “we urged them to adhere to the rules to ensure a peaceful environment at the workplaces.”

Mr Asamoah reiterated the call for the government to make Commissioners full-time officers to expedite the hearing of cases at the NLC.

He said full-time Commissioners would expedite the resolution processes to avoid the current delays in resolving most of the cases.

The Executive Secretary stated that the Commission, since its establishment in 2005 had received over 1.2 million complaints involving five million complainants, out of which over 70 per cent had been heard and resolved.

He said the weekly hearing of cases by members of the Commission was inadequate to resolve the numerous cases brought before the Commission

Mr Asamoah urged the aggrieved workers not to hesitate to bring their labour Issues to the NLC for amicable settlement.

He mentioned non-cooperation from parties as one of the challenges affecting the fast- tracking and settling of cases.

The Executive Secretary urged workers to use dialogue in addressing agitations at their workplaces, and called for the co-operation of parties in settlement of disputes at the Commission.