Galamsey: Organized Labour to strike indefinitely

The Ghana Federation of Labour, GFL, has clarified that the strike action announced by Organized Labour will run until the government takes real action. Organized Labour declared a mass strike starting from October 10, 2024, to force the government to end illegal mining also referred to as galamsey.

“Following the expiration of our deadline, and the failure of the government to meet our demands on illegal mining, Organized Labour has decided to declare a nationwide strike with effect from October 10, 2024,”Joshua Ansah, Secretary-General of TUC announced in a statement.

“We are therefore calling on all workers to stay at home staring Thursday, October 10, 2024 until government accede to our demands,” the statement added.

A day after the TUC’s announcement, Kenneth Koomson, Deputy General Secretary of the GFL confirmed that the strike action will be indefinite until the government acts.

“The demands were specific and clear and the government has not yet responded to any of the demands that we made,” he told the Citi Breakfast Show on October 2.

Adding, “We spoke about the revocation of LI 2462 and the need to ensure that security personnel are deployed to waterbodies and forest areas where mining is happening and none of those have been granted and that is why we are here.”

According to Mr Koomson, “It is an indefinite strike because we all understand the gravity of the problem that we are dealing with and so we consider this a top-notch problem that we have to tackle with all we can and so it will be an indefinite strike.”