8% Pay Rise Falls Short, Says Ghana's Public Services Workers' Union

Ghana's public sector workers will receive an eight per cent increase in base pay in 2027, but the Public Services Workers' Union (PSWU) says the adjustment does nothing to fix what it calls the real and persistent problem — that public servants are simply not being paid realistic salaries in the first place.

Bernard Adjei, General Secretary of the PSWU, made the union's position clear during an appearance on Joy News' PM Express on Monday, stating bluntly that the proposed rise would not satisfy his members' core demands. "What we are actually fighting for for our members is that we are paid realistic salaries. It is our contention and our position that the public sector worker is not being paid realistic salaries. That is the major point," he said.

When asked directly whether the eight per cent adjustment would address the union's concerns, Mr Adjei's answer was unambiguous: "No, it doesn't."

The background: A long-running wage dispute

The tension between public sector unions and government over salaries in Ghana is not new. For years, organised labour has argued that annual percentage-based adjustments are fundamentally flawed as a mechanism for improving workers' welfare, because they are applied on top of a base that many unions consider to be already inadequate.

If a worker's existing salary is too low to meet daily living costs, increasing it by eight per cent — however welcome — does not move them into a position of financial stability. The PSWU's argument is that the entire remuneration framework needs to be reviewed from the ground up, rather than tweaked at the edges each year through percentage negotiations.

This position has been consistent across several rounds of public sector pay talks. The union has maintained that repeated incremental adjustments, without a structural overhaul of how salaries are determined and benchmarked, cannot resolve the underlying problem of low pay in parts of the public service.

Why it matters for Ghana

Public sector employment remains a significant part of Ghana's workforce, covering workers in health, education, local government, and a wide range of state institutions. The welfare of these workers has direct consequences for service delivery across the country — from hospitals and schools to government offices that ordinary Ghanaians interact with daily.

When public servants feel underpaid, the consequences can include low morale, reduced productivity, absenteeism, and — critically — the loss of skilled workers to the private sector or abroad, a pattern sometimes referred to as brain drain. Ghana's health sector in particular has experienced sustained pressure from emigration of trained professionals seeking better pay and conditions in Europe and North America.

Beyond individual hardship, chronically low public sector salaries can also create conditions that make corruption more tempting, as workers seek to supplement inadequate earnings. Addressing the structural pay problem is therefore not just a labour relations issue — it has implications for governance and accountability.

What the union wants

The PSWU's position points towards a demand for a comprehensive review of the public sector pay structure — one that establishes salary levels based on the actual cost of living and the professional value of the work performed, rather than negotiating annual percentage increases on a low base.

• The union wants salaries benchmarked against realistic living costs and worker circumstances.
• It argues that percentage-based annual rises cannot resolve structural underpayment.
• A broader review of Ghana's public sector remuneration system is the union's stated priority.

Whether government and the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission will engage with the union's demand for a structural overhaul — rather than simply defending the eight per cent figure — remains to be seen. For now, the PSWU has made clear that it regards this round of pay negotiations as falling well short of what Ghana's public servants actually need.