Category: Report

Categories
Climate Latest Report

BWI Report – Social Dialogue and Collective Bargaining in the Green Transition

Social dialogue and collective bargaining are key tools for trade unions and workers to shape, negotiate, and influence the transition to greener models and practices. As part of its work to tackle the climate crisis and fight for a green transition, BWI is aiming to expand the scope of International Framework Agreements (IFAs) to include provisions for a Just Transition.

This report – commissioned by the Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWI) from the Global Labour Institute (GLI) with the support of the Laudes Foundation – highlights good practices and provides guidance and recommendations on how to include a just transition in social dialogue and collective bargaining, with a specific focus on IFAs, with the aim of contributing to strengthening workers and trade unions’ agency on climate change issues. 

It is designed for trade union leaders, workers’ representatives, and organizers at the workplace in BWI’s sectors to support them in advancing social dialogue and collective bargaining on a just transition, particularly with multinational corporations (MNCs). It also includes a toolkit to support BWI and affiliates in developing a union policy and bargaining position and engaging in collective bargaining with multinational corporations on a just transition in BWI sectors, particularly through IFAs.

Click here to read this report in English.

Categories
Informal Work Latest Report

Abidjan Bus Rapid Transit and Metro: Labour Impact Assessment 

Abidjan faces major problems in passenger transport, most of which is in the informal economy. Services are frequently slow and unreliable, roads are congested and poorly maintained. Most services are provided by numerous gbâkâs (minibuses) and wôrowôros (taxis), mostly old environmentally harmful vehicles operating on a target (‘la recette’) system that encourages dangerously long working hours and on-street competition between drivers.

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and Metro systems offer the prospect of more efficient, cleaner, and faster passenger transport. At the same time, they potentially threaten the livelihoods of thousands of people who currently depend on the employment provided by the informal transport industry.

This labour impact assessment attempts to build a comprehensive understanding of the composition and characteristics of the workforce, the issues that workers face in their day-to-day work, and detailed illustrations of the microeconomy, as well as an attempt to estimate the number of livelihoods in the transport industry at risk or to be created through the introduction of BRT and Metro.

This report of research was commissioned by the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) from Global Labour Institute (GLI) and Université Alassane Ouattara (Côte d’Ivoire).

Click here to read this report in English.

Click here to read this report in French. 

Read this report via Academia.edu here.

Categories
Informal Work Latest Report

Informal Transport Workers in Accra: Livelihoods, Organisation and Issues

Accra’s passenger transport system is dominated by a large paratransit industry, primarily informally operated buses and minibuses (“trotros”) and motorcycle taxis (“okada”) and taxis. In common with most major African cities, Accra’s streets are highly congested. The paratransit industry has also become notorious for inefficiency, violent criminality, pollution and corruption.

On the other hand, it offers cheap transport essential for the more than four million commuters and is highly flexible and responsive. It also informally employs hundreds of thousands of people in a city where earnings are poor and where employment is scarce.

The transformation of Accra’s informal public transport into a more efficient, less congested and more environmentally sustainable system is a critical issue for national and local government in Ghana.

This report analyses the paratransit industry in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA) from a socio-economic perspective. It provides a description of the informal transport workforce in Accra, including those working in the trotro minibus, taxi and okada (motorcycle taxi) industries. It examines workforce characteristics, livelihoods and employment relationships, provides in-depth economic profiles of operations, identifies key issues, and considers options for formalisation.

The main objective is to support a public transport reform and streamlining of the highly fragmented paratransit sector. The findings, analyses and recommendations are meant to support a constructive engagement with stakeholders

The report is based on research undertaken by GLI in 2021 in partnership with the University of Cape Coast and transport trade unions in Ghana, as part of a broader project with Transitec Consulting Engineers and Organisation Development Africa (ODA), commissioned by the Ghana Urban Mobility and Accessibility Project (GUMAP) of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development.

Click here to read this report.