Minimum Wage: TUC hopeful of outcome of tripartite committee Meeting

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is hopeful the outcome of the tripartite committee concerning the minimum wage for 2021 will be welcoming for employees.

They anticipate a wholistic approach considering the devastating state the COVID-19 bestowed on cost of living globally. The national daily minimum wage is the least wage any employer in the country can pay a worker in a day.

Secretary-General of TUC when speaking to journalists in Accra after a meeting on the minimum wage indicated that, organised labour has received the assurance of the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Mr Ignatius Baffour-Awuah, that as soon as the technical committee set up by the National Tripartite Committee to produce a report on the minimum wage finishes its job in the next two weeks, a negotiation meeting would be convened to discuss the matter.

“The process is that we have to put in place a technical committee, which will consider all happenings within the economy – things like the inflation rate and the growth of the economy – and submit the report to us”, Dr Anthony Yaw Baah, Secretary-General of TUC intimated. Adding that, “It is a very complex process and we hope they will do a good job”.

He, however, pointed out that the report of the technical committee is “usually not taken as a final product”.

“It is also negotiated”, he noted.

In 2019, the National Tripartite Committee (NTC) announced an 11 per cent increase in the National Daily Minimum Wage (NDMW) from GH¢10.65 to GH¢11.82.

It was expected to have taken effect on 1 January 2020.

Announcing the increase in Accra at the time, Mr Baffour-Awuah also stated that the NTC had agreed that the new minimum wage should be tax-exempt.

By Adnan Adams Mohammed