The various road transport unions have been advised to organise and regulate the mode of operations of ‘floating drivers’ (drivers without lorry stations) to curb the reckless practices some of them employ on the road.
Mr Kofi Asamoah, Secretary General of the Ghana Trades Union Congress, who gave the advice at the weekend, said the poor conditions of service of the floating drivers forced them to engage in “selfish and irresponsible practices on the road that caused many crashes”.
He was speaking at the launch of a two-week International Caravan to raise awareness of the poor working conditions of personnel from the road sector, in Accra.
The caravan was started in Burkina Faso on March 4 and is expected to journey through Niger, Benin, Togo, Ghana and eventually end up in Mali on March 17.
It is being organised by the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF).
Mr Asamoah observed that floating drivers operated on opportunistic basis without any schedule, route licensing or service standards.
He described the working conditions of personnel in the road sector as “unacceptable”.
“Beyond unemployment and income insecurity, many transport workers have no access to social protection benefits including social security,” he noted.
Mr Asamoah charged the transport unions to provide regular road safety training for their members to reduce road crashes.
He decried the fragmented approach management used by the unions to deal with issues of indiscipline and called on the groups to build the capacity of their members to be more responsible on the road.
Mr Emmanuel Armstrong Mensah, Vice President of the ITF, said though the Labour Act (Act 651 and Act 2003) contained a provision that guaranteed social protection to workers in the road transport sector, the implementation of the
law was experiencing some constraints.
He appealed to the Minister of Transport to work with the Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare to fashion out policies to improve the working conditions of those in the road transport sector.