Labor Relations in Ghana

Abstract

Labor relations in the Gold Coast (Ghana), or aspects thereof, such as collective bargaining, free trade unions, and arbitration, cannot be discussed as though a free market economy existed there or on the assumption that it will develop as in Europe and in America. The state is the dominant employer of labor and the principal source of capital; without its initiative the economy would not have developed. So long as this persists an effective free trade union movement will be difficult to secure, and it is as yet too early to attempt to predict how the trade union movement will develop. To a considerable degree the direction of African thought may depend on the understanding shown by the West of the magnitude and complexity of the economic and political problems facing the new statesmen in Ghana.—Ed.