Trade unions in Africa to design workplace policies on AIDS

Accra, July 21, GNA - Union Network International (UNI), a global body that is concerned with workplace policies, has constituted working groups to fight against the stigmatisation of People Living With HIV/AIDS (PLWAS) among workers.

The seven working groups would work out details of how to harmonise workplace policies to conform to collective bargaining and other negotiations by the various Trades Unions for better working conditions.

This was the outcome of recommendations of the 7th Africa Regional Executive Committee meeting of UNI in Accra. It was on the theme: "Fighting HIV/AIDS Through Action and Workplace Policies: Experiences from Unions."

Mr Napoleon Kpoh, UNI-Africa Regional President, who briefed the Ghana News Agency on the outcome of the three-day meeting, said the group would identify what employees and employers should do to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and how to take care of the PLWAS. He said the meeting produced a framework that would facilitate a universal access to quality care for PLWAS, as well as, the scale of HIV prevention, treatment, care and support interventions by 2010. "This is a huge challenge that needs concerted efforts to achieve," said Mr Kpoh, who also General Secretary of the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union.

He said setbacks to the recommendations were scarcity of health personnel and the rising cost of treating PLWAS. "The massive brain drain of nurses and doctors is having an impact on the provision of care and treatment to AIDS sufferers. Most African countries supplement their national budgets with donor funding to purchase anti-retroviral drugs."

He noted that workplace policies on HIV/AIDS should address the concerns of women and other vulnerable people in society, who were being infected with HIV on an alarming scale.

"To win the battle against HIV/AIDS, young people should be seen as actors and part of the solution rather than spectators," Mr Kpoh added. According to him, delegates at the meeting were unanimous in the view that provision of information and services in the prevention of HIV/AIDS was critical for the youth.