Stakeholders take stock of progress made toward safe and decent work in Ghana’s fisheries

Stakeholders in Ghana’s fisheries sector have been convened to share insights on key labour and resource-related issues in the marine economy, with strong focus on the need to promote decent work and safe fishing in Accra.

Building on a workshop on Safe and Decent Work held two years ago, the one-day meeting convened fisheries sector employers and employees as well as value chain actors including fishmongers, government agencies, trade union groups and non-government, inter-governmental and civil society organizations.

Participants were drawn from the coastal regions of Central, Western, Volta and Greater Accra, a representative of the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) from Senegal, as well as researchers from Cape Coast and Sunyani, Switzerland, and Canada.

The workshop was convened by the Centre for Development and Environment (CDE) of the University of Bern and the University of Cape Coast, and hosted by the Ghana Fisheries Recovery Activity (GFRA).

The day’s program featured a mix of presentations and participative group work to harness collaborative ideas towards the promotion and effective implementation of safe and decent work in Ghana’s fisheries.

Vanessa Jaiteh, a senior research scientist at CDE, leads a study that aims to understand the contexts, events and actors that have shaped the decent work movement in Ghana’s fisheries.

She indicated that the workshop was designed with a view to encouraging and harnessing productive dialogue among stakeholders about what has, and hasn’t, worked in Ghana’s efforts towards decent work and more sustainable fisheries in the last two years.

“We wanted this to be a day of mutual learning and direct exchange between fish workers and their employers, the regulators and organizations that support workers. It’s quite clear that in terms of policy changes and inter-agency cooperation, remarkable progress has been made,” she said.

She added: “But we are also hearing that much of that progress hasn’t yet manifested for fish workers, and in some cases, it has even disrupted informal relations between fishers and fish mommies, with implications that could unravel some of the good progress made. Ideally, a workshop like this facilitates developments in the right direction by helping everyone present understand what’s needed for policy changes to translate into tangible improvements on the beach and at sea.”

Most of the progress of the last two years has followed the formation of the Work in Fishing Committee, a tripartite group consisting of fishing labour, employers, and regulators.

The committee is headed by the Ghana Maritime Authority (GMA) and has introduced a number of measures aimed to ensure decent work at sea, including pre-departure inspections, mandatory medical certificates and basic maritime safety training for fishers, as well as contracts with improved wages for workers on industrial fishing vessels.

In the most recent push for improved working conditions in its fishery sector, Ghana last month ratified the International Labour Organization’s Work in Fishing Convention 188.

Effective September 1 this year, fishing vessels that do not meet the requisite prescriptions of ILO Convention 188 and without the mandatory maritime labour certificate would not be permitted to set sail, the Ghana Maritime Authority (GMA) indicated.

According to the state body responsible for licensing commercial vessels and seafarers, the move formed part of measures to tackle the rising spate of labour-related abuses and indecent work practices within Ghana’s industrial and artisanal fishing space.

“By this, we seek to enforce decent work across the fisheries sector; and it will ensure that living and working conditions of sailors/fishers are based on the standards prescribed under the Work in Fishing Convention C188 of the International Labour Organization,” principal maritime administration officer at the Ghana Maritime Authority, Awudu Enusah, said in an interview on the sidelines of the workshop.

The director of marine fisheries management division of the Fisheries Commission, Mrs.  Maame Esi Bordah Quayson, remarked that decent work does not only protect the rights of fishers and social protection for workers but also fosters a more sustainable and prosperous fishing industry.

“In promoting and encouraging a culture of responsibility stewardship, we need to be responsible enough as we prioritize worker well-being as well as marine resources” she noted, whilst emphasizing that the maritime labour certificate will be requested from vessel operators before they are granted a fishing license.”

Welcoming the directive, the acting general secretary of the National Union of Seamen, Ports and Allied Workers (NUSPAW) of Trades Union Congress (TUC), Michael Angmor, said that the maritime labour certificate will significantly enhance workers’ safety and improved living conditions.

“The labour certification is the best thing for the industry as it will address issues about working conditions onboard vessels. If a vessel has that certificate, it means that there’s compliance with the Work in Fishing (C188) conditions,” he noted.

Fishers present at the meeting generally welcomed the steps taken toward improving their working conditions, but pointed out that there was long way to go still.

“Our accommodation is much better; we sleep in bunk beds now and no longer on fishing nets and cockroaches. Also, having contracts has improved our pay though some parts have worked out yet.

We still eat gari and rice all the time whilst our Chinese counterparts eat prawns, sausages and fish sauce. And there are still unexplained deductions from our pay, including GH¢200 taken from each sailor’s salary per trip for the crew manager,” a trawl fisher from Tema shared on anonymity.

Bright Tsai, a former boatswain and local union chairman of NUSPAW also noted: “Fishers have contracts now, medical certificates have come and each sailor is mandated to have a bank account.

But those who have accounts are still being paid over the table. Fishers can still be sacked by their employers without fair warning, justification or compensation.”

For fish workers like Millicent Mantey, a fish monger from Tema, these improvements have come at a cost: “When the contract was prepared, they said they were going to share sailors’ fish but that was taken out of their contracts. Now, they don’t even bring chop fish and they don’t share carton fish. We want the contract to be revised so they share the carton fish so it can be given to us.”

She continued, “Now that the sailors don’t share fish, where will we get the money to give to the sailors whenever they ask for it? They ask us for money when their wives are sick or give birth, when their children are leaving for school, and so on. A sailor cannot give us the money he takes at the office. He can only give us fish so we are pleading for the government to let sailors take home fish so we can all get something to eat.”

Dorcas Mensah, a fishmonger and canoe owner from Dixcove in the Western Region, also shared her experience: “Today’s workshop has enhanced my understanding about decent work and the bad side of illegal fishing. For instance, I’ve learned that catching smaller fishes contributes to depleting fish stocks, and that plastic pollution and use of chemicals harm fishes and fishmongers.”

“This new knowledge will help improve my work; I will share it with my colleague fishmongers and even fishermen in my community to help promote decent and safe fishing,” she added.