Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 1999, published 88th ILC session (2000)

Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87) - Ghana (Ratification: 1965)

The Committee notes the information contained in the Government's report.

Article 3 of the Convention (The right of workers' organizations to organize their activities and to formulate their programmes without interference from the public authorities). The Committee noted that under section 22 of the Industrial Relations Act of 1965, a person declaring, instigating or inciting others to take part in a strike considered to be illegal is liable to a fine or one year's imprisonment, or both.

The Committee recalls in this regard that penal sanctions for strike action should be possible only where the prohibitions in question are in conformity with the principles of freedom of association. Any sanction applied as a result of activities arising from illegal strikes should be in proportion to the offence committed, and the authorities should not impose measures of imprisonment on those organizing or taking part in a peaceful strike (see General Survey on freedom of association and collective bargaining, 1994, paragraph 177). In an earlier report, the Government indicated that, even though records available indicate that all strikes in Ghana have been illegal because of non-compliance with the dispute settlement procedure laid down in the Industrial Relations Act, 1965, no worker had been prosecuted on the grounds that he had embarked on strike action or incited others to strike. Noting the absence of comments by the Government in its latest report on this question, the Committee again requests the Government to take the necessary steps to bring its legal text into conformity with practice and amend its legislation accordingly and to keep it informed of all developments in this sphere.

The Committee also notes that the procedure for resolving disputes as defined by the Act of 1965 provides under its section 18 for compulsory arbitration by the minister if one of the parties to the dispute thinks fit.

In this connection the Committee considers that compulsory arbitration to end a collective labour dispute is acceptable either when called for by both parties to the dispute, or in cases where the strike may be limited, or even prohibited, that is in cases of conflict in the public service where the public servant is exercising authority in the name of the State or in essential services in the strict sense of the term, that is those the interruption of which would endanger the life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population or in the case of acute national crisis.

The Committee therefore requests the Government to amend its legislation regarding the resolution of disputes so as to restrict the minister's authority to refer a dispute to compulsory arbitration to the cases listed above, and to transmit to it statistics on the number of strikes declared illegal, as well as the grounds for their illegality.