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Currently, the TUC has 18 member unions and 9 associate member. The National Constitution of Ghana and the Labour Act (Act 651, 2003) give all the workers the right to join trade unions and to bargain collectively. ^[1] The goal of the Trade Union of Congress is to organize all workers in Ghana into one-independent, democratic trade organization. Unions in Ghana are funded by membership dues. Membership dues can range anywhere between one to three percent of gross salaries of the workers deductible monthly. However, the (TUC) receives 30 percent of of dues deducted by affiliate trade unions from their members. ^[2] Membership in the Trade Union Congress of Ghana constitutes about six percent of the entire Ghanian labor force.

There was a need to start the trade union congress in Ghana because of the miserable working conditions that were forced upon people during the colonial period in Africa. As well as the change in economy. Government expenditures increased from 2.5 million in 1938 to 14.1 million in 1949. The Europeans highly exercised forced labour, racial discrimination, semi-subsistence agriculture, poorly trained workforce, disintegration of ethnic bonds, and indigenous craft enterprises. The TUC was led by president C.W. Tachie-Menson and General Secretary Manfred Gaisie. Their main objectives of establishing the trade union was: achievement of high living standards, improvement in wages and better working conditions; the attainment of shorter working hours with the enjoyment of leisure; improvement in security against sickness, uemployment, invalidity, old age, accidents, and other hazards of life and work; establishment and maintenance of regional, District and Area Labour Councils; support for the national effort of Economic Development through efficient and maximum productivity and to work for equitable sharing of the national income; to maintain and safeguard the democratic character of the trade union movement and to protect it from outside hostile forces and from infiltration or penetration by subversive element; and to promote aid and encourage the establishment of co-operation, and other economic enterprises owned wholly or partly by workers or by Congress on their behalf and to encourage the sale of union goods and services. The first unions that participated in the (TUC) included: Railway Employees' Union, the Gold Coast Mines Employees' Union, Weija Water Works Workers' Union, Accra Municipal Workers' Union and Sekondi-Takoradi Municipal Employees' Union. Wage labour drastically increased from 130,930 participants in 1949 to 359,300 participants in the year of 1979. ^[3]

Trade unions in Ghana have been highly promoted through out Africa. That is because the colonial regime encouraged unions, but they also tried to keep them weak and often times quite small and poor. In 1956, fifty of eighty-one active unions had under 250 members; seven had 1,000-5,000 members and only the Miners' Workers Union had more than 10,000. Few employers were willing to engage in collective bargaining as they wanted to stay within the informal sector of the working economy. ^[4] In 1959, an amendment was instituted that stated all unions must merge with the (TUC). This caused many problems as the whole point of creating a trade union was to create a democratic organizations. Many problems rose as leadership abuses occurred, which led to the fall of union capacities.

In the past decade the TUC and the Institute for Development Studies of University of Cape Coast has run labour studies programs with the Certificate in Labour Studies (CLS), Diploma in Labour Studies (DLS) and Executive Post-Graduate Certificate in Labour Policy Studies (LPS) in an effort to aware union leaders of the importance of collective action. Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).

The GTUC is a male-dominated society as female participation in the union is miniscule. Women are denied medical facilities for their wards and spouses, bereavement benefits in the loss of spouse and benefits under scholarship schemes designed for employees' children and ward. ^[5] Female participation in the Trades Union of congress is only 25 percent and their participation in collective bargaining rights is even lower. Women tend to have jobs in rural agriculture as farmers or petty traders. Only 12 percent of women as agaisnt 21 percent of men work in the formal sector. ^[6] To this day, women have been given unequal opportunities to education and employment due to the paternal society of Ghana. However, the (TUC) acknowledges the problem of the lack of female representation in their strive for a democratic trade organization. They have addressed through issues by targeting areas such as: increasing women's representation on union decision-making structures, increasing women's participation in trade union activties, tackling workplace gender discrimination and women's labour conditions, dealing with women's social rights beyond the workplace, skills and capacity development for negotiating and career advancement, and increasing gender sensitivity within the GTUC. ^[7] In 1969, the Women's Desk was created with the help of the African-American Labour Centre (AALC) to help tackle this issue of gender inequality. By 1998 regional women's wings had been set up in all ten regions of Ghana while instituting a trade union policy on sexual harassment. To this date, all trade unions affiliated with the (TUC) have instituted policies such as gender policies and women's wings. There have been huge strides in an effort to increase female participation in the (TUC) as there has been a 186 percent increase in female participation over a period of only eight years through affirmative action. However the (TUC) laments that the rate of increase still falls below its targeted annual 30 percent. ^[8]

The (TUC) has made it a priority to educate the younger generations in Ghana to aware them of their right to unionize because 19 percent of the working force in Ghana is between the age 15 and 24 years of age. It appears that most trade members of the (TUC) are between the age of 35 and 40 years old due to the lack of entrants into the labor market. The (TUC) has established the Youth desk and other various youth programs to encourage participation in union activities. The main objective of the Youth Desk is to ensure that the youth understand the principles, vision, mission and political ideologies and values of trade unionism. <ref>Ghana Trades Union Congress: Policies, 2012-2016.<ref> Youths in Ghana only account for 2 percent of 5,000 of jobs regulated by the (TUC). As a result of the lack of jobs for youths, the (TUC) along with The general Agricultural Worker's Union (GAWU) and Timber and Workers' Union have implemented new projects to provide jobs for the youthful communities. <ref>Baah, Anthony Yaw. Youth Employment in Ghana: Policies and Trade Union Initiatives : Discussion Paper. Accra: Ghana Trades Union Congress, 2007<ref>

Members not associated with Trades Union Congress of Ghana and the Ghana Federation of Labour is nearly 200,000 workers. Current trade unions that do not affiliate themsleves with the Trade Union Congress of Ghana: Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), Ghana Registered Nurses Association (GRNA), National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), Polytechnic teachers Association of Ghana (POTAG), Ghana Medical Association (GMA), Civil and Local Government Staff Association of Ghana (CLOSAG), Judicial Services Staff Association of Ghana (JUSSAG).