Union democracy and the challenge of globalisation to organised labour in Ghana

In Ghana, trade union strategies to combat globalisation challenges include revamping union structures to enhance the membership of women and informal economy workers. Internal democracy in trade unions relies on the ability of their members, irrespective of their background, to access the power tools offered by unions to defend their working rights. The construction of trade union membership around male formal economy workers offers limited access for women and informal economy members to union power tools like education, sub-group autonomy and participation in union governance. The inability of trade unions in Ghana to foster solidarity between women, informal and formal economy members, was affecting not only members’ access to power resources, but union potential to combat effectively globalisation challenges in the workplace and beyond.





This Ph.D. research was supported by the Ghana NUFFIC, ‘MA Programme in Governance and Sustainable Development’ project (NPT/GHA/042).