The Trades Union Congress has praised the International Court of Justice for holding public hearings on whether the right to strike is protected under international labour law, calling the proceedings timely as Ghanaian workers across multiple sectors threaten industrial action over unpaid wages and deteriorating conditions.
The hearings, held from October 6 to 8, 2025, at The Hague, focused on interpreting the International Labour Organization’s Convention No. 87, which guarantees freedom of association for workers. For TUC Ghana, this global debate couldn’t have come at a more relevant moment. Across the country, workers in health, education, industry, and local government are either on strike or threatening to walk out over issues ranging from unpaid allowances to stalled wage negotiations.
To many ordinary Ghanaians, the word “strike” often brings frustration, long queues at hospitals, and children sent home from school. But as TUC General Secretary Joshua Ansah explained, the right to strike isn’t just about walking off the job. “It is a tool of last resort for workers to demand fairness when dialogue fails,” he said, adding that every worker who earns a decent wage today owes that right to generations who stood firm through strikes and sacrifices.
At the ICJ hearings, representatives of 18 countries and five international organisations made their case. The International Labour Organization’s Legal Adviser, Ms. Tomi Kohiyama, emphasised that the ILO’s tripartite structure, which brings together governments, employers, and workers, makes its conventions unique and essential for global labour relations. She said the Court’s opinion will bring much needed legal clarity to the question of whether the right to strike is part of the freedom of association guaranteed under Convention 87.
Speaking on behalf of the International Trade Union Confederation, Ghana’s own Mr. Paapa Danquah, who once served as the TUC’s Legal Director, delivered what observers described as a passionate argument. He reminded the Court that many rights taken for granted today, including the eight hour workday, maternity leave, and paid holidays, were won through strikes led by courageous workers. “Not everyone has gone on strike,” he reportedly said, “but we are all beneficiaries of those who have.”
The timing of these international deliberations matters for Ghana in particular. Just weeks ago, TUC threatened a nationwide strike over 12 months of unpaid salaries owed to Railway Workers Union members, giving government until September 30 to settle the arrears. Teachers, nurses, and other public sector workers have voiced similar grievances about delayed payments and poor working conditions that make their professional lives increasingly difficult.
TUC Ghana commended the ITUC’s team for defending the principle that the right to strike is part of every worker’s freedom to organise and negotiate. The union also expressed appreciation to African countries, including South Africa, Egypt, Mauritius, and Somalia, which stood firmly in support of workers’ rights before the Court. Their participation, according to TUC, reflects Africa’s continued belief in justice, democracy, and social dialogue.
But here’s the tension that makes this ICJ hearing so significant for Ghana’s labour landscape. While international courts deliberate on the legal status of strike rights, Ghanaian workers are living the reality of what happens when that right is questioned, delayed, or undermined. Railway workers go unpaid for a year. Teachers threaten to walk out over allowances. Nurses demand better conditions. Each dispute becomes a test of whether workers can effectively use their collective bargaining power or whether they’ll be dismissed as disrupting essential services.
“When workers demand fairness, they are not being disobedient; they are asking to be treated with dignity,” one union representative noted. It’s a framing that challenges the narrative often presented in media coverage, which tends to focus on inconvenience to the public rather than the underlying grievances that drive workers to such drastic measures.
The ICJ’s advisory opinion is expected in the coming months, and labour unions worldwide are watching closely. For Ghana’s TUC, a clear recognition of the right to strike under Convention 87 would not only affirm a long standing principle of justice but also send a message to employers and governments everywhere: that social peace is built not by silencing workers, but by listening to them.
Consider what that would mean practically. If the ICJ confirms that the right to strike is inherent in freedom of association under international law, it becomes harder for governments to dismiss strikes as illegitimate or to impose overly restrictive conditions on industrial action. It strengthens the legal foundation for workers negotiating from a position of genuine collective power rather than pleading from weakness.
As Mr. Ansah summed it up, “A strike is never the goal: it is the voice of frustration when dialogue is ignored. When the right to strike is respected, it means the right to fairness, to negotiation, and ultimately, to dignity at work.” It’s a perspective that reframes strikes not as disruptions to be suppressed but as symptoms of deeper failures in dialogue and fair treatment.
The broader context matters here. Ghana’s labour movement has historically been strong, but recent years have tested that strength as economic pressures have made it harder for workers to sustain prolonged industrial action. When inflation was above 50 percent and cost of living was crushing household budgets, going on strike meant forgoing already inadequate wages. Many workers couldn’t afford that sacrifice, which weakened their bargaining position precisely when they needed it most.
What the ICJ hearings represent, then, is more than just an abstract legal question about treaty interpretation. For unions like TUC Ghana, it’s about establishing a clear international standard that protects workers’ most fundamental tool for collective bargaining. It’s about ensuring that when Ghanaian railway workers go unpaid for a year, when teachers struggle with delayed allowances, when nurses work in deteriorating conditions, they have a recognised, legitimate, internationally protected right to withdraw their labour until their grievances are addressed.
The question isn’t whether strikes are convenient or popular. They rarely are. The question is whether workers have meaningful power to negotiate fair treatment, or whether that power can be legislated away whenever it becomes inconvenient for employers or governments. The ICJ’s eventual opinion will help answer that question, not just for Ghana but for workers globally who continue to struggle for dignity, fairness, and decent conditions in their workplaces.
For now, TUC Ghana waits alongside labour movements worldwide, hopeful that international law will affirm what generations of workers have long understood through hard experience: that without the right to strike, the right to organise becomes largely symbolic, and social dialogue becomes a one sided conversation where workers are expected to listen but never truly heard.
