TUC Starts Campaign To Protect Workers

The Ghana Trades Union Congress (TUC) has begun a campaign to ensure that the rights and privileges of domestic workers and street vendors are protected. According to the Head of Organisation at the TUC, Togbui Adom Drayi II, the two groups over the years had been ill treated and disrespected by their employers and some government agencies. Speaking to the Daily Graphic after members of the domestic workers and street vendors associations thronged the head office of TUC last Friday, Togbui Drayi called on the public, especially stakeholders, to join the crusade to address the problem. Campaign The start of the campaign was signalled with a walk by members of the two groups through the principal streets of Accra to register their displeasure over what they described as �constant abuse� meted out to them by their employers and some state agencies. Numbering about 100, the two groups walked through some principal streets of Adabraka in Accra, and later converged on the head office of the TUC. Attitudes must change Togbui Drayi said one important way by which the public could protect the rights of domestic workers and street vendors was for them to change their attitude towards the two groups of workers. He called on the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) in particular to stop perceiving street vendors as criminals. �We call on the AMA not to send their guards to harass vendors and destroy their products,� Togbui Drayi added. The national co-ordinator of Ghana Streetnet Alliance, Mrs Julian Afari, called on the government to pay attention to the plea of street vendors and domestic workers. She said the two groups of workers suffered harsh treatment at the hands of state agencies and their employers, and called on the government to create an avenue for them to send their grievances to the appropriate agencies for redress.