A collaborative virtual meeting of the Communication Working Group composed of affiliate members of the Organisation of Trade Unions of West Africa (OTUWA) and officials of the American Solidarity Center and the ILO’s Abuja office has discussed challenges confronting workers and citizens since the coronavirus pandemic filtered into the West African sub-region.
The virtual meeting, the second in a roll, and held mid last week, had in attendance Comrade John Odah, OTUWA’s Executive Secretary; Mr Sonny Ogbuehi, Country Program Director of the Solidarity Center (West Africa); Ms Kate Conradt and Ms Samantha Tate, of American Solidarity AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington D. C., Comrade David Dorkenoo of ILO Office, Abuja; Comrade Marie Antoinette Corr of Gambia Workers Confederation (GWC), Comrades Philomena Sampson and Edmund Adinkra of the Trade Union Congress, Ghana (Ghana-TUC), and Adjele Fafa Mensah of ITUC-Africa, Lome, Togo.
Comrade Odah, in his comment, stated that it has been a trying period for everyone against the backdrop of general lack of coordination in many countries of the West African sub-region. According to him, the informal sector remains the worst affected by the pandemic in West Africa. He therefore suggested that there is the need for in-country reports from national centres which could be used by OTUWA to engage the ECOWAS structures. Comrade Odah, on a sad note, announced the death of Comrade Jennings A.B. Wright, who until his passage was OTUWA’s Financial Secretary and President of the Sierra Leone Labour Congress (SLLC).
Mr Ogbuehi contended that the challenges being faced in the sub-region and indeed the entire African continent are direct consequences of the failure of African leaders in their neglect of the healthcare system. He stated that the pandemic offers trade unions the right opportunity to campaign more vigorously for better health system especially on the theme of ‘Healthcare for All.’
According to Mr Ogbuehi, it was good to see national centres seizing the occasions of the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Day and Workers Day to advance the campaign on ‘Healthcare for All’ and called for a consensus on what should be the focus going forward.
Ms Kate Conradt, while giving an outlook of the pandemic in North America, noted that the US has the highest number of confirmed cases of covid-19 just as it has the highest number of essential workers on the frontline of the battle against the pandemic. She stated that in view of the prevailing challenges being faced by healthcare workers, there is every indication for an increase in the agitation for more protection and unionisation. She believes that the pandemic has afforded working people the opportunity to hold their governments accountable on work-related deficits.
Ms Tate, while corroborating Ms Conradt, stated that the situation in the US was aggravated by the lack of coordination between the federal and state governments leading to a situation in which many workers in the frontline not being protected or unionised. The chaotic situation, she noted, has galvanised unions to begin to demand for decent wages, the unionisation of unorganised jobs and demand for greater protection. She revealed that engagements between government and labour were more pronounced in democratic states that are pro-workers and less in conservative states.
Comrade Dorkenoo informed the meeting that that ILO had organised a webinar conference for English-speaking labour centres in the sub-region on issues surrounding covid-19, adding that the ILO has plans to organise similar webinars for the French and Portuguese-speaking countries.
Dorkenoo, while revealing that the ILO has been gathering multilateral information from governments, employers, unions on the impact of the pandemic, also expressed concern on the obvious lack of social dialogue in many African countries.
According to Dorkenoo, the ILO is working on promoting constructive tripartite engagement between government, employers and labour in the sub-region and in working towards this direction, it has concluded plans with the International Training Centre in Turin to host some online training programs to better improve the capacity of organised labour just as it is also currently undertaking a comprehensive study of the impact of covid-19 on employment and income. He noted that the ILO, like it had done in the course of the pandemic by supporting the Nigeria Labour Congress, is also willing to assist other national centres with challenges such challenges.
For Comrade Corr of The Gambia, the coronavirus pandemic is escalating in the sub-region primarily because of the very bad economic condition. She said people are compelled to venture out and struggle for livelihood notwithstanding the dangers of the novel coronavirus and the lockdown orders put in place by governments.
According to her, observing the WHO guidance on social distancing was equally tasking because people were hungry and it was a thin line between live and livelihood. She said Gambian teachers in private schools were most impacted because proprietors refused to pay them salaries adding that trade unions were yet to have a common position in order to constructively engage government at the national level on a number of issues concerning workers.
Comrade Corr stated that The Gambia government has not put in place any reasonable stimulus package other than distribution of bread and sugar, package that she said was not enough to meet the huge job losses and non-payment of salaries to workers.
For Comrades Sampson and Adinkra of Ghana-TUC, the situation in Ghana had been marked by series of tripartite engagements involving government, private sector and organised labour. Stating that the situation was not too bad but manageable, they also noted that Ghana-TUC and the government are currently working on a stimulus package especially for the informal sector and the hotel industry assumed to be the most negatively impacted by the pandemic.
Like The Gambia where private school teachers are also harshly affected, Comrades Sampson and Adinkra revealed that proprietors of private schools in Ghana are angling for slash in salaries of workers. The government, they said, has among other responses reduced the lending rate by 2%, made compulsory the use of face masks in public places as well as closed all its borders.
ITUC-Africa representative at the meeting, Comrade Mensah, stated that ITUC- Africa has, since the beginning of the pandemic, been working with trade union across Africa with a view to fashioning creative programs/actions that would effectively respond to the African situation. As part of this programme, she stated that ITUC-Africa has sent solidarity message to frontline workers during the OSH Day in the special newsletter on African responses to covid-19.
She stated that as at the time of the meeting, there were 128 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Togo leading to the imposition of lockdown by the Togolese government with closure of schools and universities. She stated that noting that Togolese have huge challenges in observing social distancing; trade unions have been in the forefront of raising awareness and preaching personal hygiene among workers and citizens.
In terms of palliatives, she revealed that while the government had instituted a monthly $10,000-fund from which transfers are to be made to the poor and vulnerable, there is a widespread scepticism about its sustainability and reach.
Like The Gambia and Ghana, private school teachers are immediate victims as their wages depend on the number of classes/lectures they teach, with heir March and April salaries being on the line, although there are ongoing consultations between the government and trade unions across sectors on wage issues.
Participants resolved to hold the meeting on “bimonthly basis” with focus of the next meeting being on the impact of covid-19 on the healthcare sector. Towards this theme, national centres were urged to prepare country reports with special focus of government’s initiatives directed at responding to covid-19 that will have general impact on the health sector. OTUWA was also urged to ensure that selected health sector unions in the sub-region are involved in the next meeting.
