Lack of decent job opportunities, insufficient investment and under-consumption lead to an erosion of the basic social contract underlying democratic societies, Mr Gordon Bodza, Volta Regional Industrial Relations Officer of the Public Service Workers Union (PSWU) has noted.
“If we choose to continue along the present path, the world and for that matter, Ghana risks becoming more fragmented, protectionist and confrontational,” he said.
Mr Bodza made the observations at a symposium in Ho as part of this year’s May Day celebration, which falls on Sunday May 1st under the theme: “Decent work for sustainable economic development.”
He observed that countries with lowest job satisfaction and lower confidence in government and high levels of income inequality were at higher risks of social unrest.
Mr Bodza said the only way to avert such a situation in Ghana was for the country to be cautious of the Britton Woods institutions and the
World Trade Organization’s (WTO’s) “socially destructive process of globalization.”
Alternatively, Ghana should turn to the International Labour Organization’s (ILO’s) “policies that maintain decent work and income
policies that are formulated in a comprehensive Global Employment Agenda worked out by the three ILO constituents – government, employers and workers.”
Mr Bodza said the ILO’s Agenda placed employment at the heart of economic and social policies consistent with the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs), which seek through the creation of productive employment to better the lives of people who are either unemployed or whose remuneration from work is inadequate to allow them and their families to escape poverty.
Mr Briku-Boadu, Volta Regional Labour Officer, urged Labour unions to ensure that “government stops making trade deals which hurt the poor, create unemployment and exploitation.
“The demand of workers organization and union and the rest of civil society must be listened to,” he said.
Mr Briku-Boadu said labour unions needed to scrutinize all public funded projects to ensure that they conformed to “core labour
standards in their implementation.”
He also asked the unions to protect migrant workers against exploitation and ensure that government ratifies the relevant ILO
conventions.
Mr Emmanuel Mawuli Semavor, Executive Director of Integrated Agriculture Development, said the responsibility for creating decent
jobs must be borne by the employer, the worker and the Government.
He said government’s policies must promote private investment and growth of industries towards the creation of decent work opportunities in the country.
Mr Semavor said the high cost of credit in the country for example would not be able to promote the kind of decent jobs that would bring
mutual benefits to the investor - employer, labour and the Government.
He said workers must also step up their output to enable the investor and the employer to reap profits which they could share equitably with
their workers.
“Creating decent work is tripartite responsibility,’ Mr Semavor said.