Into the seventh decade of its being, the Ghana Trades Union Congress (TUC) has grown as an organisation, demonstrating resilience in its ability to withstand and overcome the many odds and trials that have faced it. Ghana TUC was launched in 1945 as a national centre of
trade unions then registered under the trade union ordinance of 1941 Cap 91. It began with a total membership of 6,030 belonging to 14 affiliates. The political ferment of the 1950s up to independence in 1957 provided also the atmosphere for the growth of unions. By 1958 when Ghana TUC completed a major round of organizational renewal the over 80 house unions who made up its affiliates were restructured into 24 affiliates. The number of affiliates has changed as a result of amalgamations and withdrawals and today there are 17 affiliates with varying sizes, ranging from unions with less than a total membership of 1,000 to those with membership of well over 40,000.
Ghana TUC itself secured a legal existence from the promulgation of the Industrial Relations Act of 1958 which recognised it as the sole national trade union center representing workers. The law went through some amendments with a major piece of legislation, namely, the Industrial Relations Act, 1965 (Act 299) emerging to provide the main framework for industrial relations. Act 299 also recognised Ghana TUC as the representative of workers but left some room for the emergence of other centres. Into the 1960s through succeeding decades of its existence the overall numbers making up the total membership of Ghana TUC affiliates rose in official figures up to 600,000 by the beginning of the 1990s. The numbers have since declined significantly to between 300,000 and 350,000 largely as a result of heavy job cuts in the public sector where the trade union movement has historically drawn the majority of its members from.
It is also Important to note that large contigents of public sector workers grouped in the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) and the Civil Servants Association (CSA) altogether numbering well over 200,000 members, also exist outside the Ghana TUC family.
In spite of these, it is instructive that Ghana TUC has achieved the status of an institution in Ghana continues to be the most representative national trade union centre in the country. It maintains a secretariat with national headquarters comprising a number of specialized departments as well as regional offices in the 10 adminstrative regions of Ghana. Ghana TUC also embodies labour councils that are operative in over 100 districts around the country.
Ghana TUC leads the rest of organised labour in protecting collective bargaining rights as well as in policy intervention concerning labour market and other national issues. The influence and profile of Ghana TUC extends way beyond the apparent strength of about 350,000 members, with the organisation constituting the strongest voice in Ghanaian civil society.
At International level Ghana TUC is a member of the new International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and is active in the regional organisation ICFTU-AFRO (which is due to merge in November 2007 with the Democratic Organisation of African Workers' Trade Unions, DOAWTU, which in turn is the regional organisation of the World Confederation of Labour, WCL that merged recently with the ICFTU to form ITUC). Ghana TUC is also a member of OATUU as well as the Organisation of Trade Unions of West Africa (OTUWA) and maintains bilateral relations witha number of trade unions in Africa (particularly strong with National Liberia Congress (NLC) of Nigeria and Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) of South Africa) as well as with trade union driven solidarity support organisations from Europe, namely FNV Mondiaal of the Netherlands, SASK of Finland, LO-FTF of Denmark and FES of Germany as well as others in America and Asia. The affiliates of Ghana TUC are also active in Global Union Federations including Public Services International (PSI), International Transport Federation (ITF), Union Network International (UNI), Education International Federation of Chemical Energy Mine and General Workers Unions (ICEM) and Building and Woodworkers' International (BWI).
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