Despite the well established fact that childbirth is one of the key things which curtails the progress of women when it comes to career—and somewhat deepens the gender inequality, on the back of which maternity leave is positioned to bridge the gap, Tigo Ghana has decided that the rights of its women staff would not be respected in this regard.
In consonance with International Labor Laws, Ghana’s Labor Act (Act 651) Section 57 states inter alia that;
A woman worker, on production of a medical certificate issued by a medical practitioner or a midwife indicating the expected date of her confinement, is entitled to a period of maternity leave of at least twelve weeks in addition to any period of annual leave she is entitled after her period of confinement.
(2) A woman worker on maternity leave is entitled to be paid her full remuneration and other benefits to which she is otherwise entitled.
(3) The period of maternity leave may be extended for at least two additional weeks where the confinement is abnormal or where in the course of the same confinement two or more babies are born.
(4) Where an illness, medically certified by a medical practitioner, is due to her pregnancy, the woman worker is entitled to additional leave as certified by the medical practitioner.
(5) Where an illness, medically certified by a medical practitioner, is due to her confinement the woman worker is entitled to an extension of the leave after confinement as certified by the medical practitioner.
Regardless of the above legal provision, Tigo Ghana has allegedly decided to go rogue, and play outside its labour responsibilities by cunningly violating the rights of its female staff .
The company has purportedly sent out an internal Memo today (see above), which a whistle-blower has forwarded a copy to GhanaCelebrities.Com, saying, a group of its female workers will from henceforth have no maternity rights.
That sounds insane and straight illegal even if you have no understanding of labor laws—but wait until you hear that, the same Memo adds that, “an employee who wishes to go on maternity leave will have to apply for a break (leave without pay) and reapply for their position after the maternity break.”
If you’ve not spotted the intention from the Memo, let’s mention that what Tigo Ghana is simply doing is trying to dodge its responsibility to a group of its women staff—by putting its reliance staff on a 6 months contract, clearly doing so because you would mostly need to have been employed for at least 6 months and 2 weeks to be able to qualify for maternity.
From this, it can be deducted that, you wouldn’t ever be able to score the 6 months and 2 weeks requirement to earn maternity if you are a reliance staff at Tigo, because your contract is set for 6 months subject to renewal. And reasonably, as Tigo seems to be looking to dodge maternity payments for reliance staff, they would not renew the contract for pregnant women.
Those who would ‘unfortunately’ need maternity while within their 6 months contract will have to go on maternity without pay—and then when they are done, will have to re-apply for their jobs and start another new 6 months contract, we believe.
According to the whistleblower who sent us the internal Memo from Tigo; “how contract staff are being treated [in relation to maternity], is just one of the many things that is wrong with this company.”
This is clearly illegal, absurd and a clear exploitation of women—such big companies continue to take the ordinary workers for granted, mostly through such apparent legal fudging policies.
We are highlighting this so that the many women rights advocates and organisations in Ghana can step in to compel Tigo to do what’s right—such scheming against women workers in the face of the already existing inequality should not be allowed.
The irony is that the current CEO of Tigo is a woman and she is doing this to her follow women. What a waste country full of evil people.
A worker must reapply for her job after taking a break for maternity that you wouldn’t even pay her? WTF did women do wrong in this country called Ghana?
Women haven’t done anything wrong in Ghana. If this is true, then I would say that this woman -CEO is very wicked and evil. Is very unfortunate. I would advise the employees to take serious legal action against this policy or probably contact the labor commission for further advice as this is absolutely unlawful and absurd!!!
how can she say she had no idea when tigo HR was in copy. A staff was forced to stay home just because she gave birth……it a shame to work for tigo, this is mostly what goes on at the customer operations department.
Really TIGO HR was copied into it? How did you know? This is serious matter.
My sister worked for Tigo before and they are so useless to employees treating her like a rag. They use this agency because they want the agency to do their dirty bidding. They send instructions to the agency so they are well aware of this. Dont believe what they say. Evil company
so true they use this agency to do their dirty bidding @Afia, my brother was laid off with a text message when he had worked for over years with just 2 weeks pay.