Observation (CEACR) - adopted 2011, published 101st ILC session (2012)

Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98) - Ghana (Ratification: 1959)

The Committee notes the comments of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) dated 4 August 2011, particularly concerning a 2008 decision of the Accra High Court to the effect that employers could hire and fire without giving any reasons for the termination of employment and that some employers are using this ruling to get rid of unionists. The Committee had also previously noted the comments made by the ITUC in 2009 concerning the persistent refusal of some employers to the unionization of their employees in export processing zones, a current dispute concerning unionization in the export processing zones pending before the National Labour Commission and instances of anti-union discrimination. The Committee requests the Government to respond to all these comments of the ITUC.

The Committee notes that the Government’s report has not been received. It must therefore repeat its previous observation which reads as follows:

Prison staff. In several of its previous comments, the Committee had requested the Government to take the necessary legislative measures to ensure that prison service staff enjoys the right to organize and bargain collectively. The Committee noted that the Government indicated that the Ghana Prison Service is a state agency classified under the security and intelligence agencies which derived its mandate from the Security and Intelligence Agencies Act, 1996 (Act 526). The Committee further noted that the Government indicated that the concerns raised by the Committee had been communicated to the competent authorities. Recalling once again that the Convention’s guarantees apply to prison service staff, the Committee once again requests the Government to take the necessary measures to amend the Labour Act, so as to ensure that prison service staff expressly enjoy the right to organize and to collective bargaining, and to provide information on any measures taken or contemplated in this regard.

Collective bargaining certification. The Committee had previously noted that sections 99–100 of the Labour Act, 2003, regulate the issue of trade union recognition for collective bargaining purposes by providing that the Chief Labour Officer shall issue, upon request by a trade union, a certificate appointing that trade union as the appropriate representative to conduct negotiations on behalf of the class of workers specified in the collective bargaining certificate. The Committee further noted that under section 99(4), the Chief Labour Officer appeared to have full discretion to decide which trade union to grant recognition to, in situations where more than one trade union existed at the workplace, and that the criteria upon which this decision should be based were not specified. The Committee also noted that the Government indicated that in this situation, the Chief Labour Officer would consult with both trade unions to undertake verification to determine which union is to be issued a bargaining certificate. In these circumstances, the Committee once again recalled that when national legislation provides for a compulsory procedure for recognizing unions as exclusive bargaining agents, certain safeguards should be attached, such as: (a) the certification to be made by an independent body; (b) the representative organization to be chosen by a majority vote of the employees in the unit concerned; (c) the right of an organization, which in a previous trade union election failed to secure a sufficiently large number of votes, to request a new election after a stipulated period; and (d) the right of any new organization other than the certified organization to demand a new election after a reasonable period has elapsed (see the General Survey on freedom of association and collective bargaining, 1994, paragraph 240). The Committee once again requests the Government to take measures to adopt the appropriate regulations establishing procedures and objective criteria concerning the Chief Labour Officer’s competence to determine which union shall hold a collective bargaining certificate, in keeping with the abovementioned principle, and to provide information on developments in this regard.

The Committee hopes that the Government will make every effort to take the necessary action in the near future.