General News of Tuesday, 31 January 2017

Source: dailyguideafrica.com

Antrak staff cry over unpaid salaries

The staff claim they have not been paid their transport allowances since December 2015. The staff claim they have not been paid their transport allowances since December 2015.

Aggrieved staff of domestic airline Antrak Air, have accused the company of failing to pay their transport allowances and salaries.

Stephen Adzimah, Flight Dispatch and Operations Officer; Samuel Anator, Senior Driver; Anita Nugloze, Ticketing Agent and 47 other aggrieved workers of the company, accused management of the company of treating them unfairly with regards to the payment of their allowances and salaries.

According to them, they have not been paid their transport allowances pegged at GH?2,700 per staff by the airline since December 2013.

'Since June 2015 when Antrak Air suspended its operations for three months, we have not been paid our monthly salaries', they indicated.

It would be recalled that Antrak Air in June 2015 suspended its operations for the three months due to challenges with its wet lease arrangement with Swift Air, a Spanish airliner, over the use of two ATR 72-500 turbo prop aircraft.

The workers told BUSINESS GUIDE that the company assured them on several occasions that it would resume operations and pay their allowances and salaries.

The workers, who hired the services of a lawyer at S.K. Boafo & Company, a law firm, said “We decided to take legal action against the company after we realized that the company was not in the position to resume operations and pay our allowances and salaries.

“Our clients informed us of the suspension of the operations of airline for a three-month period,” a letter addressed to management of Antrak Air by Lawyer David Boafo on behalf of the aggrieved workers stated.

Before the said letter was written to the company, we visited Alhaji Asoma Banda, the Chairman of the Board of Antrak Group Ltd on 5th April 2016 to amicably settle the matter, they added.

During the meeting, Mr. Asoma Banda assured them that the airline would resume operations within three months from the date of the visit.

However, the company has failed to resume operations and pay their allowances and salaries, compelling them to report the matter to the National Labour Commission (NLC)

The Commission, BUSINESS GUIDE gathered, wrote to management of the company on three occasions to invite it to a meeting with the workers in order to resolve the issues.

But management of Antrak Air reportedly refused to honour the invitation of NLC.

All efforts to contact Alhaji Asoma Banda or Antrak Air to comment on the matter proved futile, as calls by the paper were not answered.