Ghana needs new labour laws responsive to the specificities of digital labour platforms to ensure that legal recourse is possible for all platform workers, the 2022 Ghana Fairwork Report has recommended.
It has therefore reiterated calls on the Ghana Labour Department, the Ministry of Labour and Employment and other stakeholders in the country to take immediate action to push for platforms to recognise their workers as “traditional” workers covered by the country’s Labour Act, not as independent contractors.
Dr Joseph Budu, Country Manager of Fairwork Ghana, explained that currently only two platforms including The Black Ride and Glovo out of 10 platforms studied were subject to the laws of the country.
The other platforms included Uber, Bolt, Yango, Swift-Wheels, inDriver, Feenix, Bolt Food, and Jumia Food.
Dr Budu said this in Accra on Friday when he presented findings of the 2022 Ghana Fairwork Report,supported by Invest for Jobs, an initiative of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The report with data collected from May to October, this year, from digital platform workers and managers in Accra, Kumasi, and Takoradi was to assess the working conditions of the 10 digital labour platforms as against five global principles of Fairwork, including fair pay, fair conditions, fair contracts, fair management, and fair representation.
Each of the platforms operating in the country were scored against all five principles to assess whether they provided basic labour standards like minimum wage or protection against accidents.
Dr Budu noted that Black Ride and Glovo topped the list of platforms studied with five points out of 10 while the remaining scored zero.
He therefore urged Ghanaians to patronise fairer digital labour platforms to improve working conditions for platform workers.
He said that was to also signal the need for change to platforms treating platform workers poorly.
The Member of Parliament for Abetifi Constituency in the Eastern Region, Bryan Acheampong who launched the reporturged the platforms not to drop their quality services at the time their clienteles were increasing.
“More platforms have sprung up in recent time but we take advantage of customers when they begin to take our services. I do not want to believe that is so,” he added.
Prof. Justice Nyigmah Bawole, Dean, University of Ghana (UG) Business School who was excited about the report said it would help bridge gaps in the sector and make it fairer.
BY ABIGAIL ARTHUR
