Unionised in Order to Achieve Collective Bargaining Power-TUC Boss

The Secretary General of the Trade Union Congress has advised informal sector workers to join unions for them to have a say when making demands when it comes to the issue of the collective bargaining agreement. Speaking at a public lecture at the British Council, Kwesi Adu-Amankwah says this will provide them with the opportunity to securing “the possibilities of applying for laws and minimum standards to their operations and existence”

Mr. Adu-Amankwah who spoke on the topic “economic Liberalization, Informalization of work and the Informal Economy: Losing the battle to decent work?, traced the emergence of the informal sector to what he termed “the beginning of the colonial capitalism period” which saw an upsurge in the promotion of primary commodities production for export and import of consumer goods, while domestic trade gave rise to large contingents of the labour force in both agriculture and petty trading who were either self-employed or hired under traditional or the informal arrangements.

According to him, the campaign for a better living wage in Ghana and the achievements of unions in securing better incomes and other non-wage benefits through collective bargaining and other industrial action demonstrate that trade unions are important in Ghana, for rooting out the phenomenon of the working poor as a milestone on the way to achieving decent work.

On the issue of decent work Mr. Adu-Amankwah said unions are critical when it comes to the fight for social protection and social dialogue for workers in the country. “The efforts at self-organisation by informal economy operators, trade union efforts at extending membership coverage into the informal economy and efforts by SSNIT to extend social protection to informal economy operators, all demonstrate possibilities for reducing the decent work deficit in Ghana,” he told the participants.

Acknowledging imbalances recorded in the country's decent work survey which needs to be erased, Mr. Adu-Amankwah however said his outfit is still stepping up the process to ensure decent work exists in both the formal and informal sectors of the economy.
“The challenge is to organise the informal economy and ensure that their interests are fully catered for in the formulation and implementation of economic and social policies,” he added.

He concluded by saying union activities have been important for achieving the gains of decent work in Ghana and elsewhere. Whether in regard to the achievement of rights at work, social protection or social dialogue.

Participants who later spoke to dailyExpress appealed to the organisers not to limit the discussions only to those in the academia alone.