Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung@ 40 in Ghana bargaining as a feature of industrial relations fostered by post colonial labour legislation, conditions also encouraged Ghana TUC to establish labour owned enterprises and labour cooperatives, establish vocational and productivity training institutions, participate in Boards of Directors of state owned enterprises, and also by virtue of its relationship with the ruling party, to influence to some extent, the development of government policy on a range of economic and social issues. The overthrow of the First Republican Government of Ghana in a military-cum­police coup d'etat in 1966 changed the political conditions under which Ghana TUC operated and reduced the organisation's direct influence on state policy as well as state patronage that it enjoyed. The preoccupations have, however, remained by and large, the same. FES and Ghana TUC Partnership The Friedrich Ebert Stiftung signed a formal agreement with the Second Republican Government of Ghana in December 1969 that provided a framework for its operations in Ghana and subsequent relations with Ghana TUC as one of its main partners in the country. In the early years of its partnership with Ghana TUC, FES support covered equipment including audio-visual aids, vehicles; vocational training and trade union education; as well as projects in health, housing leading to the construction of residential units in the 1970s into the 1980s for hundreds of workers in two main cities of Kumasi and Takoradi; consumer credit cooperatives at workplaces, also in the 1970s and 1980s when Ghana experienced shortages of consumer items on the open market as a result of regulated market, known as`price control' in popular parlance. From the beginning of the 1990s, however, FES cooperation has been active in research and policy development as well as in organisational development. In the 45