Corporate Social Responsibility Policies and Labour Practices in Ghana: A Case Study of Anglogold Ashanti and the International Framework Agreement

This case study was on one of the major areas in industrial relations (IR), union-employer relations. Specifically it dealt with the global mining giant, AngloGold Ashanti, the only mining signatory to an International Framework Agreement (IFA) in Africa. The study also examined the management practices transfer, the two IFA/GFA agreements (2002 and 2009) and the company’s corporate code of conduct (CCC) and its CSR practices. The methodology for this study was qualitative through the interpretive method, entailing desk research, internet searches and interviews of 46 persons among select mining stakeholder groups. There were national and local unions, AngloGold staff, government agencies, academics/researchers, other professionals and NGOs. The results showed that there was little or no awareness/knowledge of IFAs, AngloGold as an IFA signatory, her CCC, management practices transfer, unions and global union federations (GUF). The respondents were however aware of the company’s corporate philanthropy projects. The findings also revealed that the power of the unions has not been able to match up to the powers of AngloGold in all respects. Whatever “meaning” there was, had been socially constructed by AngloGold in their activities and CSR, their recourse to a management initiated CCC, rather than their two global agreements. The Ghana unions were more of the “pluralist” tradition, within a “neo-institutionalist” type of worker representation as opposed to their South African counterparts who were “radical” and “militant” within the “social movement” stock. The Ghana unions were spineless despite the successes achieved in other jurisdictions and continents, in “union coalition”, “transnational solidarity”, “social movement unionism”, and “community unions”. The unions should also strive to reconstruct the AngloGold determined “meanings”. These unions with the assistance of sister unions and GUFs need to counter the management practices in union-employer relations like outsourcing, discrimination in remuneration and the poor corporate governance practices of AngloGold.