| The International Labour Organization(hereafter abbreviated as ILO)set out minimum standards for collective labour agreement but countries have the liberty to make amendments in the respective labour laws to meet the interest and demand of parties in the labour market.Various studies have proved that labour relations between employers and employees in the United Kingdom(hereafter abbreviated as UK)are very cordial and as such there is not much labour agitation in the country and the reason why the UK has been able to achieve such stable labour relations between employers on one hand and employees,on the other hand,is because the country has successfully improved and effectively incorporated collective labour agreements into its labour laws.Meanwhile,Ghana,which is a former colony of the UK and practices the same legal system as that of the UK(common law system),has over the years experienced lots of strikes,constant labour unrest and agitation between employers and employees and the main reasons for this phenomenon is because Ghana has not effectively and efficiently incorporated the core values of collective labour agreements in its labour laws.The purpose of this study is therefore to make a comparison between the UK and Ghanaian Labour laws as far as collective labour agreements are concerned so as to identify the strength of the UK labour system of which Ghana can learn from and eventually improve the labour laws of Ghana in order to put an end to the constant labour unrest and agitation between employers and employees.The main method used in this thesis is the comparative method although other methods such as the dialectical,historical materialism,analytical,descriptive and predictive methods are also occasionally used.The descriptive,historical and dialectical methods are used primarily in the introduction and the first chapter of the thesis when discussing important concepts of collective labour agreements.The predictive method is used in chapter five to give some recommendations for improving the Ghanaian labour laws and since this thesis is a comparative study,chapter 2,3,and 4 were all devoted towards comparing some important aspects of collective labour agreements between the UK and Ghanaian labour laws per the standards of the ILO.The summary of the main findings of the thesis is that: firstly,Ghanaian labour laws are defective in various ways.Also,trade unions are not well developed and effective in collective bargaining.Again the mechanisms for enforcing labour laws are ineffective and finally,there is lack of awareness on the importance of collective labour agreements in the workplace and as such employees lack basic knowledge about the labour laws.Based on these findings,the following recommendations were made in order to improve the labour laws of Ghana.Firstly,there is the need to improve the laws relating to collective labour agreements: this includes measures such as expanding bargaining actors on the side of the employee,dealing with incompatible and outmoded provisions,amending the legal duration of collective labour agreement,restructuring laws on collective labour agreements in case of undertaking,restructuring the laws on the procedure for amending collective labour agreement and improving laws on labour dispute settlement mechanism.Secondly,it is also important to strengthen and improve conditions for the development of trade unions and this include measures such as: the need for a change in the formation structure of trade unions,enhancing the role of trade unions in the bargaining process,the need for strong laws to protect officials of trade union from anti-union treatment,discriminations or threat as well as strengthening the economic and financial status of trade union to enable them operate independently out of state control an influence.Thirdly there is the need to improve and strengthen labour law implementation mechanisms and finally,awareness creation and massive education need to be done on the importance of collective labour agreement at the workplace. |
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