Labour unions asked to use the NLC

Accra, July 11, GNA - Mr. Kwesi Danso-Acheampong, Deputy Chairman of the National Labour Commission (NLC), on Wednesday asked labour unions in the country to use the Commission instead of the law courts for the settlement of labour disputes.

He made the call at the opening of a day's workshop organized by the Commission on freedom of association and collective bargaining for social partners and stakeholders.

The workshop was attended by representatives of Trades Union Congress (TUC), government and Ghana Employers' Association (GEA). The purpose of the workshop was to harmonize the positions of labour and employers on the issues of freedom of association and collective bargaining in order to reduce strike actions and to engender investor confidence in the country.

Mr. Danso-Acheampong noted that of late the Commission had come under pressure for being legalistic, but it had no choice than to determine cases under the dictates of the Labour Act 2003, Act 651, to prevent disputing parties from seeking determination of cases in the law courts.

Mrs. Bernice Welbeck, Acting Executive Secretary of the NLC, said 90 per cent of labour disputes in 2006 comprised issues of freedom of association and collective bargaining.

She told the GNA that issues bordering on those two areas were in their tens of thousands in that year alone, saying they came to the Commission in the form of collective and individual disputes. "All the collective disputes were settled through arbitration and adjudication but there are a few individual disputes, including those on unfair termination of appointments, which are yet to be settled," he said.

She noted that most of the disputes came from the public sector, saying that this was the case because the Civil Servants' Association (CSA) was not a recognized labour union under the Labour Act, so the Association had no powers to handle such disputes.