GOVERNMENT, EMPLOYERS AND WORKERS IN GHANA: A STUDY OF THE MUTUAL PERCEPTION OF ROLES
| Date | 01 March 1976 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.1976.tb00034.x |
| Author | Ukandi G. Damachi |
| Published date | 01 March 1976 |
British
Journal
of
Industrial
Relations
Vol.
XIV
No.
1
GOVERNMENT, EMPLOYERS AND WORKERS IN GHANA:
A
STUDY
OF
THE MUTUAL PERCEPTION
OF
ROLES
UKANDI G.
DAMACHI*
THE purpose of this study is to examine on the basis of
a
survey of
a
sample set
out below:
(1)
how the three main actors in the industrial relations system of
Ghana perceive one another’s roles;
(2)
to demonstrate the basic causes and
nature
of
the conflict between them; and
(3)
to indicate the prospects for the
reduction of that conflict.
Accordingly, the following interviews were conducted: first,
a
representative
sample of ten political leaders consisting of ‘Nkrumahites’, ‘Busiaites’ and in-
dependents;’ fifteen employers and managers whose enterprises were unionised;
five employers who were native Ghanaian employers and whose enterprises were
non-unionised and eighteen civil servants chosen from the government ministries
which were involved in formulating national policies pertaining to the worker and
his union. Secondly, the seventeen general secretaries of the seventeen national
unions in Ghana; eighty-five workers, representatively selected, twenty of whom
were non-unionists. Of the sixty-five who were unionists seventeen were officials.
The representative sample of government officials, political leaders and private
employers was asked the following questions:
(1)
What is your attitude toward trade unions?
(2)
What role have they played
so
far?
(3)
How is your work affected by the trade unions? (employer interviewees
(4)
What role has the government played in promoting peaceful industrial
(5)
What role do you think they should be playing in the development process?
These questions sought to probe government and private employers’ attitudes
towards trade unions, their conception of union role, areas of conflict in labour-
management relations, and what could be done to resolve these conflicts.
The questions for the seventeen union leaders and the representative sample of
workers were as follows:
only).
relations? (government officials and political leaders only).
(1)
What is the management attitude towards the trade unions?
(2)
Do you consider your relationship with management satisfactory?
(3)
(If the answer to question
(2)
was negative.) What do you think should be
(4)
(If the answer to question
(2)
was positive.) What accounts for the cordial
(5)
What is the government attitude towards trade unions?
(6)
Questions
(3)
and
(4)
were again asked but with labour-management
relations replaced by union-government relations.
(7)
What form should union-government relationship take?
(8)
Should trade unions participate in party politics?
(9)
How have the trade unions helped the government
to
promote
done to improve labour-management relations?
labour-management relations?
development?
(10)
How should the government support union activities?
International Institute
for
Labour Studies, Geneva, Switzerland.
26
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