Episode 4 – LABOUR LAW REFORM IN GHANA
Grievance Procedures and the Shift from External Disputes to Internal Resolution
4.1 Introduction
One of the most practical and understated innovations in the Draft Labour Bill, 2025 is the explicit requirement for internal grievance procedures at the workplace. While Ghana’s labour law has long provided mechanisms for resolving disputes, these mechanisms have traditionally operated after conflicts have escalated beyond the workplace.
The Draft Labour Bill introduces a modest but significant shift in emphasis: workplace disputes should, as far as possible, be addressed internally before they crystallise into formal industrial disputes requiring external intervention.
This episode examines how grievance handling is treated under the Labour Act, 2003 (Act 651), what the Draft Labour Bill adds, and why this change matters for workers, employers, and the industrial relations system as a whole.
4.2 Dispute Resolution under the Labour Act, 2003 (Act 651)
Act 651 establishes a comprehensive framework for the settlement of industrial disputes, centred on negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and the oversight of the National Labour Commission (NLC). Parties to an industrial dispute are required to negotiate in good faith and, where necessary, seek mediation through the Commission.
Importantly, Act 651 refers to dispute settlement procedures contained in collective agreements or contracts of employment, and empowers the NLC to insist that such agreed procedures be exhausted where they exist.
However, the Act does not expressly require employers to establish internal grievance-handling mechanisms as a general workplace obligation. Its focus is primarily on managing disputes once they have emerged and escalated, rather than on structuring how complaints should be handled at the earliest stage within the workplace.
4.3 Grievances and Industrial Disputes: An Important Distinction
Grievances do arise in the workplace. They are often the starting point of labour conflict, taking the form of complaints about supervision, discipline, working conditions, or treatment at work. This reality is not in dispute.
The critical point, however, is legal rather than practical. Under Act 651, the law regulates industrial disputes, not workplace grievance systems. A grievance becomes legally significant under the Act only when it escalates into an industrial dispute involving collective processes or external intervention.
While Act 651 assumes that grievance procedures may exist, particularly through collective agreements, it does not impose a universal statutory duty on employers to establish internal grievance mechanisms applicable to all workplaces, including non-unionised environments. As a result, grievance handling under the Act remains informal, uneven, and largely dependent on workplace practice rather than legal obligation.
4.4 The Draft Labour Bill, 2025: Formalising Grievance Handling
The Draft Labour Bill, 2025 addresses this gap by bringing grievance handling into the statute itself. It introduces a clear expectation that employers establish internal grievance procedures through which workers can raise concerns and seek redress within the workplace.
This is not a replacement for the National Labour Commission or other external mechanisms. Rather, it reorders the sequence of dispute resolution, positioning internal grievance handling as a first line of response before disputes escalate externally.
By doing so, the Bill moves labour regulation upstream, focusing on early intervention rather than post-conflict correction.
4.5 Conclusion
The Draft Labour Bill, 2025 does not radically alter the balance of power in Ghana’s industrial relations system. What it does is make explicit what has long been assumed but inconsistently practised: that workplaces should have internal mechanisms to listen, respond, and resolve concerns early.
By formalising grievance procedures, the Bill seeks to reduce unnecessary escalation, improve workplace harmony, and strengthen the legitimacy of disciplinary and termination decisions where such actions become unavoidable.
Kenneth K. Koomson
Member, Labour Bill Drafting Committee