Right to strike is basis of workers’ rights — TUC
The Ghana Trades Union Congress (TUC) has stated that the right to strike remains one of the key avenues for ensuring the interests of its members who are the working people of the country.
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In asserting that right, it joins workers globally in the campaign to defend the international right to strike, which falls today.
The day is being commemorated on the theme, “Hands off our right to strike.”
At a news conference in Accra yesterday to address issues relating to that right and the threats to the right being waged at the level of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Mr Kofi Asamoah, the Secretary-General of the TUC, gave the local perspectives on how the right to strike in Ghana was being curtailed.
He cited procedural bottlenecks, such as the long and frustrating processes, including notifying the police and court actions by the government like the one recently initiated by the government against the striking labour unions who were dissatisfied with the government’s dealings with their pensions.
Mr Asamoah said more than ever, workers needed a collective and a united action to protect their interests.
He pledged that unions would unite to guard the heritage handed over to them by their forebearers.
International front
At the international level, Mr Asamoah said simultaneous action would take place across the world to remind all about the right to strike, which is the basis of the rights of workers.
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Giving a background of the threat to the right to strike, Mr Asamoah said in June 2012, the Employer Group of the International Labour Conference, which is the annual Tripartite Conference of the ILO, refused to cooperate with the Committee on the Application of Labour Standards, until the tripartite members agreed to water down comments of the experts relating to the right to strike.
He said since then, the ability of the ILO Committee on the Application of Standards to supervise the implementation, in law and practice, of the freedom of association and collective bargaining provisions, captured under ILO Conventions 87 and 98 had suffered greatly.
Mr Asamoah emphasised the point that the freedom of association, the right to collective bargaining and the right to strike had always been applied as a “derived, implied or corollary right.”
“Without the right to strike, the freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining is meaningless, and without the right to collectively act in the protection of socio-economic interests of working people, we have no rights at all,” he contended.
Recognised rights
Mr Asamoah said those rights had been recognised at the ILO, with key bodies like the Committee of Freedom of Association, the Committee of the Application of Standards and the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations, being set up within ILO’s supervisory system.
He said employers were of the view that once the right to strike had not been expressly stated in any of the conventions, no such right could be read.
“This argument is bogus and in the least belated,” he stated.
That, he said was particularly so, when the right to strike was recognised as an international labour standard.
He outlined consistent international practice and understanding that had ensured the right to strike as an international standard.
These included increasing references by domestic courts to the jurisprudence of the ILO.
Power crisis
On the incessant power outages in the country, Mr Asamoah said the TUC was displeased with the manner in which the government was handling the power crisis.
He said the steering committee of the congress would soon come out with the TUC’s position on the situation, including moves to privatise the Electricity Corporation of Ghana (ECG).
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Writer's email: caroline.boateng@graphic.com.gh