PThe Industrial and Commercial Workers Unions (ICU), Ghana has cautioned that it will resist any attempt by the Ghana Trade Unions Congress (TUC), to eject the union from the TUC hall, in Accra, under the guise of renovation.
The ICU has, therefore, asked the TUC to instruct contractors undertaking the renovation to allow its staff and visitors unimpeded access to its offices as well as not tamper with utility connections there.
General Secretary of ICU, Mr Solomon Kotei, issued the warning at an emergency meeting with members of the union, in Accra yesterday.
He stated that the union was part-owner of the building, bequeathed to all national unions by the late Former President Dr Kwame Nkrumah in 1960, and that no amount of machinations would make the union vacate the hall.
Mr Kotei said “the hall of Trade Unions is thus a monument not only to the memory of the late Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, but workers both dead and alive, and also serves as a rallying ground for all workers of Ghana. Indeed, when this building was bequeathed to the National Unions, ICU was mentioned in the ordinance that was gazetted.”
He said in 2011, the TUC filed a writ at an Accra High Court seeking to eject the ICU withmembership of 100,000 from the TUC hall, the action failed as the case was stalled at the court.
Mr Kotei said on April, 2018, the TUC wrote to the ICU notifying it of a supposed renovation of the hall, and that the ICU-Ghana and other National Unions should vacate their offices in the hall by August 2018.
He said the TUC had ‘shared the cost’ of renovation to all national unions occupying the TUC hall, with the exception of ICU, part-owner of the facility.’
By Anita Nyarko-Yirenkyi
