OBIRI WORKERS DEMAND SALARY ARREARS (PAGE 24)

WORKERS of Obiri Asare and Sons Company Limited, operators of various kinds of weekly lotteries in Takoradi, have urged management of the company to pay them their 11 months salaries which are in arrears or take legal action against them.
In a letter to the Daily Graphic, the workers, numbering about 400, said they had worked for the company for more than five years.
The letter was signed by eight of the aggrieved workers who claimed anonymity.
“The management, especially the Managing Director (MD), Mr James Kojo Asare, has refused to pay us our salaries since June 2007 up to now,” the workers said.
They also alleged that “if you resign, the MD will not pay your salary and entitlement to you. He will tell you there is no money. He has also not paid our SSNIT contributions for many years”.
According to them, they had taken bank loans with interest, which they were required to service monthly, but because they were denied their salaries, they were unable to do that.
“The MD has intentionally used our salaries to form a new company by name O.J.K. Company, which deals in petroleum products and distributes Guinness to various parts of the Central Region and the whole of the Western Region, they explained against the MD.
They said even though they had approached him personally and pleaded with him to pay them their salaries, he had vehemently refused to fulfil the many promises he had given them.
“We are demanding our salaries and welfare dues with interest, since he has used the money to run this company and open more filling stations in all the regional capitals and even bought 20 new petrol tankers in May 2008,” the workers said.
They said even though the MD had refused to pay them their salaries, they were usually at post, but he only thought of the casual workers who got their salaries at the end of every week.
“In fact, he has treated us like slaves and he is badly starving us and our families, depriving our children of their education. We all owe rents, light and water bills and school fees,” they complained.
All attempts to reach the MD on his cellphone for his side of the story proved futile, since he did not respond to the numerous phone calls.