Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps and tables
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I A political history of Ghanaian railway unionism
- 1 The railway and harbour workers of Sekondi-Takoradi: a sociological profile
- 2 The origins and dynamics of Railway Union development
- 3 The railway workers in the nationalist movement – the meaning of political commitment
- 4 The politics of TUC reorganisation under the CPP regime
- 5 The railway workers' response to CPP socialism: the strike of 1961
- 6 The development of an independent and democratic trade union movement
- 7 The railway workers divided: the sources and structure of political conflict in the Railway Union
- Part II Class, power and ideology
- Conclusion
- Appendix: Survey questionnaire administered to a sample of railway workers at Sekondi Location
- Notes
- Bibliography of sources cited
- Index
7 - The railway workers divided: the sources and structure of political conflict in the Railway Union
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps and tables
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I A political history of Ghanaian railway unionism
- 1 The railway and harbour workers of Sekondi-Takoradi: a sociological profile
- 2 The origins and dynamics of Railway Union development
- 3 The railway workers in the nationalist movement – the meaning of political commitment
- 4 The politics of TUC reorganisation under the CPP regime
- 5 The railway workers' response to CPP socialism: the strike of 1961
- 6 The development of an independent and democratic trade union movement
- 7 The railway workers divided: the sources and structure of political conflict in the Railway Union
- Part II Class, power and ideology
- Conclusion
- Appendix: Survey questionnaire administered to a sample of railway workers at Sekondi Location
- Notes
- Bibliography of sources cited
- Index
Summary
At a mass meeting of the Sekondi Location Branch of the Railway and Ports Workers' Union on 21 January 1970, a majority of the assembled workers resolved to secede and to form themselves into a new union. This splinter group, officially terming itself the Railway and Harbour Employees' Union, but known in local parlance as the ‘Biafrans’ (in distinction from the ‘Federalists’), explained its action in terms of the fact that ‘There has been no improvement whatsoever in the administration of our former union since we passed a vote of no confidence in the national officers in May 1967’. Almost two-thirds of the Location manual workers (i.e. some 900 out of a total of 1,580) became members of the new union, and they were soon joined by approximately a quarter of the workers employed at Takoradi harbour (i.e. some 1,100 out of a total labour force of nearly 5,000), together with small groups in Tema and Kumasi.
The leadership of the new union (hereafter referred to as the ‘splinter union’ in distinction from the ‘mother union’ – terms also used by the railway workers themselves) then proceeded to extend the object of its criticisms to the leadership and structure of the Ghana TUC. In June its general secretary, K. G. Quartey, called on the government to repeal the Industrial Relations Act (inherited from the CPP regime) and to proscribe the TUC.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Class, Power and Ideology in GhanaThe Railwaymen of Sekondi, pp. 140 - 166Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1978