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The Ghana Trades Union Congress (TUC) has called for an immediate end to the practice where most employers engage casual workers on long term basis. It said the practice where employers engaged workers as casuals even when full-time jobs were available, allowed them to maximise profit at the expense of workers. The union added that the practice was an affront to the country�s labour laws that enjoined employers to not engage workers on a casual basis for more than six months. �In Ghana, it is now common to find skilled, professional and unskilled workers engaged as casuals for more than five to six years without being engaged permanently,� the TUC stated. The Secretary-General of the TUC, Mr Kofi Asamoah, made the call on behalf of organised labour at a forum to mark World Day on Decent Work in Accra yesterday, The event, held on the theme �Justice for workers, climate change�, is a day set aside to mobilise all trade unions to stand up against exploitation of workers at the workplace and call for better working conditions and job security. Mr Asamoah said Ghana was touted by the international community as a country where the rights and responsibilities of workers were protected and promoted in conformity with the standards of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). However, he noted that there was an unprecedented crave by employers to recruit workers on a casual basis, a situation which deprives workers of good working conditions and a decent living on retirement. �Today, many employers refuse to regularise the employment of workers, making them to lack access to decent jobs that guarantee them decent incomes, safe jobs, protective clothing, respect of their rights and responsibilities and social dialogue,� Mr Asamoah stressed. He said what was even more worrying was that the trend was creeping into the public sector, and since the government was a major employer, it was unacceptable for it to allow the practice to continue. He added that most employers often resorted to redeploying workers whenever their organisations encountered challenges. �Without doing any exhaustive analysis, employers lay off workers when even they are least to be blamed for any challenge.� Mr Asamoah called on workers to take keen interest in the decision-making processes at their workplaces, especially in decisions that affected them, to make their voices to be heard at all levels and urged agencies responsible for enforcing labour laws to step up their game in protecting and promoting the rights of workers. A representative of the International Union of Food, Agriculture, Hotel and Restaurants, Ms Adwoa Sakyi, expressed worry over the poor conditions under which most domestic workers worked in Ghana. �These categories of workers in the informal sector are poorly paid, work under poor conditions, and lack job security,� she said, noting that the laws and regulations instituted to protect them were also inadequate. She, therefore, called on the government, the Ghana Employers Association and the TUC to support proposals to stop violence against women, adding that �issues of gender-based violence are inimical to decent work.�