The challenge of globalization, labor market restructuring and union democracy in Ghana.(Report)

Introduction

Studies on trade unions, especially those of the political economy approach, reiterate the importance of trade unions in arresting the excesses of globalization, such as the threat to the environment and increasing global poverty. [1] They also underscore trade unions' pivotal role in the search for alternative development strategies. The ILO asserts unions role as an important tripartite workplace social partner in its efforts to ensure that globalization is fair to all. [2] Unions role in the solution for world development concerns come at a point in time when the positive benefits of globalization are being questioned in several sectors. The growing amount of literature on the social dimensions of future prospects of globalization shows that many are wary of the so-called benefits of globalization. [3]

Development theories, be they" ... conservative, modernisation ... or dependency theory ..., conceived development as national development" and the nation state constituted the prime focus of national decisions and actions. [4] Nation states set out their priorities for resource use on the basis of some set assumptions about how development should proceed. These priorities set the framework for resource use for production and consumption and citizens' mode for accessing needs. Present notions underlying neo-liberal economic development, as are being pushed through globalization, re-conceives development as national competitiveness within the global market place. [5] The object of production under globalization is primarily for international markets not for national consumption. This shifts the focus of development from the national to the global, while the State's space in production gets contracted to private enterprises. [6] Neo-liberal policies absolve the state of its traditional responsibility towards welfare provisioning. Re-conceptualization of development and the state's welfare and economic roles impact production and distribution decisions within countries in ways that challenge the existence of unions' ability to represent working people.

Improved technologies especially information and communication technologies that have been part of globalization, have caused considerable changes in production modes and relations. A characteristic feature of globalization is the ability of trans-national corporations (TNCs) to split production over several locations across the globe, giving rise to global production systems which allow companies to take advantage of variations in national economic incentives. The improvements in global production systems have been impressive; however they impact work and work relations, compromising the observance of core labor standards. [7] As nations compete amongst themselves to capture foreign direct investments of the TNCs, the content of their labor laws are watered down to the detriment of their workers and the movements that protect their rights.

The ILO's Director-General on the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization, whilst acknowledging the benefits of globalization, expressed concern for its negative social impact on work and working people, deploring the existence of global economic imbalances as "ethically unacceptable and politically unsustainable." [8] It is the significance of work in the lives of women and men that direct the ILO's decent work agenda: a set of "policies which not only mitigate the adverse human consequences of economic change, but which also strengthen its positive outcomes for peoples' lives and their work." [9] Accordingly the ILO's 2004 report states that the quality of work is "the 'litmus test' for the success or failure of globalization [and] the source of dignity, stability, peace and credibility of governments and the economic system." [10] It is in this connection that the impact of globalization in undermining the standards of work and job security has implications for its sustainability.

Alterations in the direction and position of production within national development practice and discourse has impacted labor markets in ways that undermined fundamentally trade unionism in several parts of the world. Trade unions have faced a consistent onslaught from globalization policies that usurped labor's role in production. Employment welfare became antagonistic to the efficient functioning of corporations generating what Streeck and Hassel call a trilemma, where full employment, price stability and free collective bargaining become untenable, any two can be achieved at the cost of the third. [11] Governments and corporations chose to sacrifice collective bargaining under the guise that its benefits are available to a very small section of the working population. [12]

After recovering from the initial shock, unions set to devising strategies to counter the impact of globalization. Union strategies have been influenced by several factors, both internal and external to their national contexts. [13] Internal factors have been historical (unions political role in nation building) or contemporary (the prevailing industrial relations frameworks within which unions operate). [14] The Ghanaian state, since 1983, has been keenly integrating her economy into the global economy. National policy making therefore is geared towards liberalization, privatization, and deregulation justified as making production entities competitive on the global market.