Reducing Income Inequality: Trade Unions Role and Views of the World Bank

1
Reducing Income Inequality Trade Unions Role and
Views of the World Bank

• Ishaque Otoo
• Ghana Trades Union Congress

2
outline

• Inequality in Ghana
• Informal employment
• Unions and the informal sector
• Challenges to union organisation in the informal
  sector
• The way forward

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Income Inequality in Ghana

• High and rising income inequality
• Income inequality and poverty reduction
  hampering efforts at reducing poverty
• Government effort at reducing income inequality
• Dealing with the rising inequality growth
  creates opportunity for the poor to make use of
  their most important assert their labour

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Informal Employment in Ghana

• The size of the informal sector 86 of total
  workforce, higher than it was in 2000
• Why a large informal sector low labour demand
  in the formal sector inability of the formal
  private sector to absorb retrenched workers
  absence of income support programmes
• Characteristics of the informal sector low
  wage, poor working conditions health and safety
  deficits lack of social protection

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Unions and the informal sector

• The need to organise in the informal sector
• Most retrenched workers were union members
• large number of workers poor working conditions
  wage , health safety, social protection etc
• Boosting the membership of the unions
• public sector could not be relied upon for union
  membership
• the falling share of formal private sector in
  total employment
• the informal sector as the only source of
  membership

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Unions in the informal sector

• Adopted a policy on organising in the informal
  sector 1996
• The Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU)
• The General Agricultural workers union (GAWU)
• The Timber and Woodworkers Union (TWU)
• Makola Traders Union (market women), Madina
  Traders Union associate membership of TUC
• The social enterprises project supported by the
  ILO

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Challenges to Union Organisation in the informal
sector

• Irregular nature of employment in the sector
  hampers effective organization
• Financial constraints
• Negative attitude of government and its agencies
  towards the sector
• Failure of unions to come up effective modes of
  organisation in the sector

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The Way forward

• Defining effective organising mechanisms
• Ghana TUC hosted International Conference on the
  Informal Economy (2006)
• Ghana TUC is also coordinating a 4-country
  research on identifying best practices in
  organising in the informal sector
• Continue to advocate for policies that promote
  employment in the formal sector