The President of Ghana Journalists Association, Mr. Roland Affail Monney has successfully unionized the Ghana Journalist Association under Ghana Trades Union Congress.
The move by the visionary leader, Alfred Monney has now given the 68 year old professional association a “Collective Bargaining Certificate”.
With the above certificate, the Ghana Journalist Association now [ads1]effectively and legally bargain for good conditions of service; negotiate wages/salary for its members.
The initiative has also given a broader mandate to association to fight for fairness, equity and the general rights of journalists at the workplaces.
Speaking at a press conference on Friday, September 22, 2017 in Accra, the GJA President, Affail Monney his office will begin a registration drive to increase the number of members to capture more practitioners from the private sector.
Mr Monney said the GJA has met the deadline by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) for the unionisation of media associations by 2018.
According to him, it has been challenging during the process to have the GJA unionized, and, so the association “passed a resolution in 2011 to metamorphose into a trade union” under the then-president Ransford Tetteh.
“Unionised employees make an average of 30 per cent more pay than non-unionised workers”, Mr Monney said, adding that “Ninety-two per cent of union workers have health related coverage. Union workers enjoy guaranteed pensions. These facts and many more contrast sharply with the general conditions of media workers in Ghana. A recent survey by the TUC on the wages and working conditions of media workers, indeed, highlighted the blatant but heartrending reality that media practitioners are among the poorly paid in Ghana.”
“In some worse case scenarios, many journalists are not paid at all. One may ask: what crime have the affected or struggling journalists committed for them to be condemned to the pauperised community? Thank God the pitiable, ignoble and horrible narrative will be consigned to the dustbin of history as the GJA has now been legally empowered to fight for the industrial and professional rights of media workers in Ghana,” he added.
Mr. Joshua Ansah, TUC Deputy General Secretary lamented the “precarious nature and working conditions of journalists especially those in the private sector”, saying the “TUC and all of us gathered here see today’s occasion as a very big opportunity to work today to have more [negotiation] power”.
Speaking to Awake News, some journalists lauded the initiative and said, “the days of no terms of employment and contract are over”.
Mr. Roland Affail Monney is the current president of the GJA who is seeking re-election on Friday 29 September 2017.
About the GJA
The Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) was established on 15th August 1949 at a time when politics in the then former British colony of the Gold Coast was at its peak and the minds of many media practitioners and ordinary citizens were filled with events of the ‘nationalist’ struggle. It is significant to note that a number of the “nationalist leaders” were journalists who employed the power of the pen to propagate their ideas and vision of independence for the then Gold Coast.
They included Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and Dr. J.B. Danquah. At the time of its formation, it was called Africa Press Association and was set up to provide the indigenous media practitioner with an alternative to the colonial press. One of its first actions in support of anti-colonialism was to organise a boycott of the so-called “white press” for a brief period. However, political differences among members of the Association grew and soon took its toll on the unity and solidarity of members.
Source: AwakeAfrica.com | Efo Korsi Senyo | senyo@awakeafrica.com
