Mine Workers Demonstrating at the ministry of lands and Natural Resources
The Ghana Mine Workers’ Union (GMWU) of the Trades Union Congress (TUC-Ghana) has raised concerns over the growing exploitation of mine workers by labour brokers allegedly operating in collaboration with some mining companies, particularly Chinese-owned firms.
The union said professional Ghanaian mine workers, including mining engineers, geologists and metallurgists, were increasingly being subjected to exploitative conditions and engaged through arrangements that amounted to disguised employment.
The concerns were raised following a peaceful demonstration in Accra by members of the union to draw the attention of the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources to what they described as growing injustices, systemic exploitation and serious deficits in decent work within Ghana’s mining sector.
In a petition to the Ministry, signed by the General Secretary of the GMWU, Abdul-Moomin Gbana, the union expressed concern about the increasing fragmentation of mining operations through contract mining and outsourcing, often justified under the guise of promoting local content.
According to the union, the trend had contributed to a shift away from permanent and stable employment towards fixed-term contracts, casual employment and other forms of precarious and disguised employment.
The GMWU said the changing employment landscape had reduced workers’ protection, increased uncertainty and exposed employees to greater risks of workplace accidents and injuries.
It further alleged that there had been a surge in violations of workers’ and trade union rights, a decline in collective bargaining coverage, increasing job insecurity, threats to social protection and fluctuations in workers’ incomes and pensions.
The union stressed, however, that it was not opposed to progressive local content policies, investment or the participation of Ghanaian businesses in the mining industry.
“We are opposed to any policy or practice that transfers wealth from workers to contractors, weakens social protection, undermines decent work and violates workers’ rights,” it stated.
The GMWU maintained that local content policies must create meaningful opportunities for Ghanaians and should not become a means of enriching a few contractors at the expense of workers who risk their lives to produce the country’s mineral wealth.
“Local content cannot become a vehicle for exploitation to enrich a few contractors at the expense of the workers who risk and sweat day and night in the bowels of the earth to produce the wealth,” the union said.
It added, “We cannot build a prosperous mining industry by impoverishing the very workers whose labour produces its wealth.”
The GMWU is therefore demanding immediate action from the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources to halt and reverse the “rising levels of precarious employment in the mining industry.”
It called for the realignment of national mineral policies with decent work standards and decisive regulatory measures to address fixed-term contracts, casualisation, disguised employment, unsafe working conditions and exploitative outsourcing.
The union also urged the Ministry to establish a permanent Government-Employers-Labour Forum on mining-sector policy to ensure that workers’ concerns and perspectives were incorporated into key decisions affecting the industry.
The GMWU said such a mechanism would help promote a more sustainable mining sector in which economic growth, local participation and investment were matched by decent working conditions and protection of workers’ rights.
By Florence Adom Asamoah