Pay attention to springing up of unions - TUC to Employment and Labour Ministry

The Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations has been urged to pay attention to the number of unions springing up across the country. 

The acting Deputy Secretary-General of the Trades Union Congress Ghana (TUC-Ghana), Joshua Ansah, said although the constitution spelt out procedures for the creation of unions, if the multiplicity  was not checked, it could hamper industrial peace.

“If one day we wake up and there are over 1,500 unions in this country and each of them is demanding one thing or the other, the country would not be able to operate.” 

Event  

The acting Deputy Secretary-General was speaking at a social partners’ consultative meeting between the TUC and its affiliate unions in Accra yesterday.

They shared experiences and challenges, and how to enhance cooperation to ensure effective management of labour issues in the country for development.

The meeting brought together representatives of all 22 affiliated groups of the TUC, the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations and the National Labour Commission, among others.  

Challenges

The acting Deputy Secretary-General also mentioned some of the challenges facing workers in the country to include inadequate provisions in the law, disregard for the provisions of the law and other statutes, and the lack of enforcement by appropriate institutions.

“Resource constraints have weakened the power and authority of the institutions of state to execute their mandate, and the lack of will to ensure enforcements has been the bane of these institutions,” he added.  

Labour Act

The Chairman of the National Labour Commission, Justice Kwabena Asuman-Adu, urged labour unions to pay attention to what was contained in the Labour Act before embarking on any industrial action.

“The Labour Act makes it clear at Section 159 the procedure to go through when a union wants to embark on an industrial action.

Unfortunately, most of the unions resolve to embark on industrial action without notifying the NLC,” he said.

To make the commission more accessible to the unions, Justice Asuman-Adu said the commission will from November, this year, sit on Wednesdays and Thursdays every week to clear the backlog of cases.

“From August 2022 to date the number of cases filed is 213.

The number of cases settled by the fifth commission so far are 310 cases.

This implies that to date the number of cases that have come before the commission are 844 cases, out of which 310 cases have been settled, leaving 534 cases pending,” he said.

The Minster of Employment and Labour Relations, Ignatius Baffour Awuah, assured the unions that negotiations would soon commence despite initial delays, adding “no matter what happens in these negotiations, both parties would come out as co-winners”.

He said the government was retooling and renovating various labour facilities to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of activities of unions.  

Mr Awuah also urged the NLC to decentralise its operations to ensure that workers across the country had a fair chance of having their issues resolved.