Country Manager for Fairwork Ghana, Dr Joseph Budu, has revealed that Ghana’s labour laws haven’t been expanded to cover individuals who work in the country’s digital space.
Dr Budu revealed that people who work with ride-hailing apps per a report launched by his outfit last year suggests they face poor working conditions. He indicated that it is necessary to have proper regulations in place to protect these drivers as the report exposed the “precarious nature” of the work that these online workers are confronted with.
In lieu of this, he maintained that there is more that these platforms can do in order to ensure that these workers, at least, earn a living wage and have better working conditions.
“… The platforms are not recognising them as employees. They are seeing them as third-party consultants and unfortunately for us, the regulations or labour laws in Ghana hasn’t also been expanded to cover this online work. So, there is a lacuna which is being exploited… That’s the fundamental issue that has to be addressed and everything else will begin to fall into place.”
Commenting on a workshop held today, May 27, 2022, by his outfit to push for policies to protect workers in the digital space, Dr Budu expressed optimism that the issues encountered by these online workers will be eventually dealt with. He stated that some of the ride-hailing platforms are also taking good initiatives to “recognize the drivers or the workers as a union”.
“So, in today’s workshop for instance, we had representation from the Ghana labour office. So, we are going to be working with various spaces to develop policy briefs which will inform the review of the Ghana labour law. We hope that once we get this issue addressed by the laws of Ghana, we can have a more legal ground to pursue further action… So, one platform for instance is going to sign a memorandum of understanding with the various unions in the country and then, I think, it will motivate other platforms to also do the same.”
Online drivers demand better working conditions
On his part, the President of the Ghana Online Drivers Union, Francis Tenge, bemoaned the plight and working conditions of drivers working on these online platforms. He noted that there is the need for government and the transport ministry to do more to salvage the situation.
“Fairly, I will say our working conditions is not good. On a scale of 1 to 10, I will say 3 because we have long hours of working and that puts so much pressure on us. So, our drivers, we work under pressure just to meet bonuses and weekly sales for our car owners. Currently, we the drivers are not being recognized by platform providers as workers [and] our car owners too are also not paying us. So, the only thing we survive on are the bonuses…”
Francis Tenge
Touching on whether the members of the union will strike again if issues are not resolved, Mr Tenge revealed that in the interim, the union will resort to engagement with relevant stakeholders and also look for better avenues to ply their trade.
“For now, we hold on in organising strikes. Our last [engagement with] Bolt, Bolt asked us to give them two months; that is ending of June. So, we are giving them that grace period, if nothing is happening, we will see our next way of action. We are also looking at possibly switching to a local app. If they are ready to help us why not”.
Francis Tenge
