Trade unions in Ghana are increasingly organizing those workers that need it the most

Background

In a context of important challenges for trade unions in the African continent and globally, ACTRAV organized two hybrid workshops with the two ILO trade union constituencies in Ghana - the Trades Union Congress (TUC) of Ghana and the Ghana Federation of Labour (GFL) - to discuss innovative strategies for trade union revitalization. The focus of the workshop has been on the first pillar of the revitalization agenda, and that is, organizing underrepresented groups of workers, such as youth, women, migrant workers, workers in the informal economy or platform workers.

In many Africa countries, including in Ghana, trade unions are under pressure: violations of trade union rights are widespread, many workers are not, or insufficiently, covered by labour and social protection, often because of ambiguous employment arrangements and many people are working in the informal economy. This results in a divide between workers with stable, paying jobs in the formal economy and workers with unstable, poorly paid, or precarious jobs, or no job at all. This has consequences in terms of trade union membership (e.g. young workers or workers in the informal economy), strength (e.g. mobilising capacity) and influence (e.g. advocacy). Whereas unions are working in a complicated trade union environment, in addition to this, there are important internal challenges, such as representation of young and female workers in the unions and their decision-making structures; a disconnect between trade union leadership and rank-and-file unionists; or transparency and accountability in decision-making. An important challenge in the country is the proliferation of unions and the need to strengthen collaboration among trade unions in order to speak and act as one.

Whether trade unions are able to address these external and internal challenges and stay relevant for all workers on those topics that matter will depend on their ability to revitalize, to develop an organisational socio-economic vision and strategic response to address the changes in the world of work, the economy and broader society. The focus of ACTRAV’s work in Ghana is on supporting trade unions in building forward-looking solutions to sustain and improve operations to strengthen trade unions’ representation, leadership, and advocacy roles, while renewing membership strategies, innovating service provision and rethinking delivery mechanisms to maximize policy advocacy and influence. ACTRAV’s programme on Trade Unions in Transformation focusses on bolstering the capacity to analyse and understand the new realities in the world of work, shape and influence economic, social, and sustainable development policies, strengthen their own institutional and organizational processes, and adopt innovative strategies, especially in the new context brought about by the crisis.

Covid-19 had mixed impacts on trade union organizing

The Covid-19 pandemic has had mixed impacts on trade union organizing in Ghana and the region. First and foremost, Covid-19 increased pressure on labour markets, workers and trade unions. Whole sectors (e.g. tourism, transport, retail, informal economy etc.) have been shut down, many people have been (temporally or long-term) unemployed and trade unions have been cut off their membership, lost members and membership dues. Furthermore, violations of trade union rights have been widespread. In many cases, this has aggravated existing vulnerabilities and inequalities.

However, Covid-19 has also been an opportunity to make big jumps in trade union revitalization. For instance, many unions have started organizing and campaigning online, providing online services, and in some cases, membership increased because of an increased interest in collective representation (e.g. to respond to new and immediate needs arising from the pandemic) or successful collective bargaining.

Learning from international experiences: organizing workers in the informal economy

During the workshops, experiences from Uganda and Sierra Leone were shared to discuss organizing workers in the informal economy.

In the case of Uganda, important categories of workers in the informal economy are street or market vendors; home-based workers; waste pickers; domestic workers; transport workers; workers in agriculture or garment workers to name but a few. Each of these groups of workers has particular concerns and needs, ranging from securing access to markets; health, safety and security issues; access to credit; fear of deportation; and corruption and abuse. This on its turn creates particular union and organizing challenges, such as ambiguity around the employment relationship and employer; competition and isolation among workers; fear of losing jobs; low self-esteem; seasonal work; etc.

Notwithstanding the complex realities of organizing workers in the informal economy, some lessons can be learned from the experience of the National Organization of Trade Unions Uganda (NOTU). Some key elements of a successful organizing strategy are: amending the trade union Constitution to allow for the incorporation of the informal sector; signing of Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) with informal sector associations and local authorities; collaboration among trade unions including through mergers; joint campaigning with employers; training and retraining of organizers; building the research capacity on broader labour market issues; and strengthening digital organizing. NOTU has developed an extensive training programme on organizing workers in the informal economy, encompassing strategy development; good governance; dispute resolution; negotiation skills; to monitoring and evaluation.

Organizing workers in the informal economy in Sierra Leone

In the case of Sierra Leone, the women-led Domestic Helpers Organization evolved over time towards the Informal Workers Organization (IWO), and with that extending its mandate towards broader groups of deprived and disadvantaged workers (including trafficked migrant workers) in the informal economy (beyond domestic work), while focussing on gender-based violence and discrimination.

IWO defines itself as a regional labour and human right based non-governmental organisation (NGO) that advocate for the protection, provision and promotion of the rights, dignity and welfare of informal workers in West Africa. It provides a broad range of innovative services, ranging from training on rights; conflict mediation; capacity building on financial literacy; liaising domestic workers with “good employers”; community organizing; providing savings and loan schemes; offering counselling and psychosocial support; supporting the most precarious workers with food and non-food items; advocating for the adoption of international standards; to supporting the formation of a union.

Furthermore, IWO established “Community Domestic Workers Advocacy Champions” and invested in strengthened data collection and research. Important lessons learned are: the need to be strongly embedded in local communities and relying on members’ involvement at/in all levels and phases.

Digital unionism: organizing beyond borders

Building and Wood Workers International (BWI) has put “innovative unionism” - understood as the need for workers’ organisations to transform trade unions by rebuilding, reforming, and adapting its structures and actions urgently - at the core of its strategy 2023-26 worldwide and in the Africa region.

BWI starts from the recognition that power lies in the workers, the members: “if we want to maintain and grow that power, we need to invest human and financial resources into recruiting more members and keeping them through an active membership policy. The shift in focus towards an active membership policy calls for a profound transformation.”

Experience from BWI shows that successful organising campaigns are built on several elements: clear strategies and targets, based on research; allocation of resources, starting with people: “organising is done by people”; knowledge of organising techniques and communications; establishment of a database of potential leaders in the workplace; identifying attractive campaign issues that come from workers and meet their needs; forming a convincing narrative; keeping the momentum; deciding on an escalation strategy, thinking one step ahead; building trust; finding allies, building cooperation with civil society, local politicians, consumer or environmental activists and the local media; and building international solidarity throughout global value chains (GVC).
Various international experiences and tools exist to support online organizing and campaigning, such as BWI/eye; UnitedWorkers; NationBuilder; Organizer; Grassroot; Basecamp; etc.

Representing and servicing women in Ghana

As a response to low women membership in Ghana’s trade unions (around a quarter of the total union membership in Ghana are women) and low representation of women in leadership positions, trade unions in Ghana developed strategies for better organizing and integrating young women into trade unions. Strategies and actions start with an overall and clear commitment to support women and women interest in the union. Afterwards, this has to be translated into ensuring gender equality at all levels in the trade union structures; the establishment of women structures; indicating the proportion of women delegates to conferences/congress/programmes/collective bargaining teams and allocating budgets to women activities. Furthermore, special attention should be paid to protecting the specific needs and interests of women, for instance, by incorporating issues in collective negotiations such as equal pay, maternity/paternity protection, work-life balance, provision of childcare facilities or combatting violence and harassment.

Assuring gender equality in trade unions also has a strong cultural component: it is key to “engage men for gender equality”, by also targeting men (e.g. through the HeForShe initiative), based on the assumption that gender equality is about transforming power relations between men and women. Along this line, transformation is also about trade unions actively working towards being a “family of workers”, instead of a “brotherhood of men.”

Conclusions and the way forward

Trade unions in Ghana have important challenges ahead of them to stay relevant in the rapidly changing world of work. However, many positive experiences exist already in Ghana and the African continent of trade unions that revitalize and transform through providing innovative services and representing those workers that need it the most, through advocating on those topics that matter, or through entering into campaigns and networks with other unions and civil society. Representing and servicing traditionally underrepresented groups of workers, such as young or women workers, workers in the informal or platform economy are considered as good examples of trade unions in transformation. As outcome of the workshops, Ghana trade unions identified various pathways and priorities for trade union revitalization. Trade unions can develop more formal and comprehensive strategies to attract new members and to retain existing members by assessing whether collective bargaining agreements are future proof: who is covered by collective agreements? and what themes are covered, going beyond bread-and-butter issues, incorporating clauses on digital transformation, homework or violence and harassment? Also Covid-19 has been a game-changer with regard to workers’ concerns and expectations for trade union services (e.g. online legal service) and digital preparedness of trade unions (e.g. trade unions in Ghana are developing an e-survey to assess membership needs in particular sectors and to organize App-drivers).

If trade unions in Ghana want to stay relevant for all workers on workers’ concerns of today and tomorrow, they should think strategically and act about trade union revitalization.