Dr Yaw Baah, the Deputy Secretary General of the Trades Union Congress, on Monday urged workers representatives at all levels to eschew divisiveness as labour engages government on the implementation of the Single Spine Pay Policy (SSPP).
He said the next few months to the July deadline were crucial and that the lingering hand that sowed "disunity within labour ranks must be isolated and cut off".
Dr Baah was delivering a paper on an overview of the SSPA at a two-day workshop on the "Single Spine Salary Structure and the Constitutional Review" in Ho sponsored by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.
Dr Baah said the scheme was a challenging one but it has huge advantages for workers in Ghana who are among the lowest paid on the
continent.
He said where the employer was ready to listen to grievances it was not proper for labour to go on the streets.
"We don't do industrial relations on the street when the employer is ready to listen," he said and added that for a scheme like this, hitches should be expected.
He said the programme was on course and that the gravitation to the new grading scale was only part of the process and should not be confused with scales on the supposed spine.
Dr Baah said labour and the Fair Wages Commission (FWC) were yet to determine the base pay and relativities to determine the spine pay
structure.
He said the policy, besides ensuring equity, was also to raise wage levels in the public sector.
Danaa Nantogmah, Programmes Coordinator of the FEF, said the workshop should tackle issues such as determining market premium on certain jobs and
allowances to be standardized.
He said the workshop would also make some input into current discussions on constitutional review especially on the provision that allowed payment of ex-gratia allowance to political office holders while cancelling end-of service benefits for other workers.