By Stanley Senya
Accra, Feb. 20, GNA – Dr Yaw Baah, Secretary-General, Trade Union Congress (TUC), has called on the International Labour Organization (IL0), to set new international standards to address the challenges of workers.
“We have very rare challenges after the Covid-19 pandemic, which have driven many workers into poverty while employers have collapsed their business, therefore we need a new international standard which will address these challenges,” he said.
Dr Baah, who hosting Mr Gilbert Houngbo, the ILO Director-General, in Accra, said, “businesses are collapsing because they cannot access capital due to the challenges to the extent that many of them including Ghana have had to seek International Monitory Fund (IMF) for support.
“This is the time more than ever that the world needs the International Labour Organization (ILO),” he added.
Mr Houngbo in his response to the call, said, the creation of artificial intelligence technology was creating problems for human physical involvement in work to some extent, adding that it was seen through the COVID pandemic that workers were at risk of being left behind.
Tensions coming out of the inflation and loss of purchasing power unfortunately is creating inequalities, these are major concerns to ILO, he informed, adding that workers needed fresher and additional goals of social justice.
He assured the Union that the ILO was working tirelessly to make sure that the condition of social justice would be relaunched during the International Labour Conference (ILC), in Europe.
“I must say that the initial reaction and feedbacks that we are getting both from workers as well as employees and from governments around the world are quite very poor that we only recognise that there are structural imbalances, if left unchecked can only cause much more harm to the global world,” he said.
He said he would work with the Ministry of Labour and Employment Relations and the Ministry of International Cooperation to focus on the supply chain since it was a foundation where on one end it created jobs and, on another end, it also had a general supply force.
Mr Houngbo in his closing remarks, said, the ILO was following closely the ongoing challenges that workers were facing in various parts of the world, including Ghana, and how governments were reacting to the global inflation as well as the rising cost of essential goods.
He commended the Trade Union Congress (TUC), for including the informal sector to their mainstream, and ready to take actions to address workers’ challenges.
GNA