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21 October, 2007
ICEM affiliate Ghana Mine Workers Union (GMWU) successfully brought 600 new members into its fold recently. Senior staff at AngloGold Ashanti’s Obuasi Mine joined the GMWU, and will become the Professional and Managerial Staffs Union of the GMWU.
At an inaugural event on 5 October, Ghana Trade Union Congress General Secretary Kwasi Adu-Amankwa called the integration a milestone event for the 65-year-old GMWU, a union, he said, that has dramatically improved work conditions and community life in Ghana’s gold belt.
GMWU General Secretary Prince William Ankrah stated that having senior staff in the union will go far in healing the colonial legacy of the 50-year-old west African nation that once saw senior and junior workers pitted against one another by the divide-and-rule dictums of labour relations by mining companies.
He welcomed the senior staff of the South African-based company into the GMWU, stating they will now be offered the same excellent services built over many years, including job security, career development, dependent educational opportunities, and other social programmes.
The Obuasi Mine is AngloGold’s most productive of three mines in Ghana, and the only one that is underground. Gold mining, which accounts for 30% of all revenues derived from the country’s exports, occurs at 1.6 kilometres deep at Obuasi, with a current project now underway to dig deeper, expecting to extend the mine’s life span beyond the year 2040.
This mine was the major catalyst behind the 2004 merger of AngloGold and Ashanti Goldfields of Ghana. The company also operates open cast mines at Iduaprim and Teberebie. With several other gold producers operating in Ghana, including Goldfields, Newmont Mining, Red Back Mining, and Golden Star of Canada, the country is Africa’s second largest gold producer behind South Africa.
The Professional and Managerial Staff of GMWU has an eight-member executive, including Chairman Seidu Adam Bogobiri, Deputy Chairman Charles Owusi, Secretary Samuel Dwamenah, Deputy Secretary Isaac Newton Kusi, First Trustee Collins Ankomah, Second Trustee Eric Obeng Foshuhene, Chaplain M.C. Turkson, and Women’s Representative Doris Apem.