Globalisation has dealt a serious blow to the international trade union movement but it is far from dead. The need for effective unions is even more urgent today, especially in Africa but can they survive the winds of change? François Misser attended the 17th World Congress of trade unions in Durban recently to file this report.

Trade Unions are going through a difficult phase world-wide. At the last 17th World Congress of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) held in Durban in April, the organisation’s secretary general Bill Jordan expressed worries that “far too few young people join unions, which is one of the main reasons for a decline in membership rates”.

Africa is no exception, admits the ICFTU’s African Regional Organisation director, Louis Sombes. On average, African trade union members are 40 years old and there is an urgent need to rejuvenate the unions’ membership, he says.

Even in countries where they have a significant presence, unions face severe problems in recruiting members from the fastest expanding sectors of the economy. This is particularly acute in Export Processing Zones of Mauritius and Madagascar, where unions are often not allowed to operate inside firms holding EPZ status. The national labour legislation is often not implemented in the EPZs claim union leaders.

In Mauritius, whereas an estimated 85% of the workforce outside EPZs is affiliated to a trade union, the rate is only 8% in the EPZs. This affects some 82,000 workers who work mostly in the textile industry. In addition, these workers do not have pension schemes and ILO standards are not applied. The Mauritius Labour Congress secretary general Jugdish Lollbeehary says people employed in the EPZs usually work from 7am to 10pm.

Malagasy trade unionists say that the situation is much worse in their country. Employers pay salaries which are well below the official minimum wage. Workers who want to take leave for medical reasons risk loosing their jobs. Labour legislation also does not apply in the timber industry and sawing mills of Cameroon and Cote d’Ivoire and security firms prevent the trade unionists access to the plants.

Another challenge for the TU movement is the current wave of privatisations all over Africa. In Gabon alone, 25,000 workers (5% of the country’s total workforce) lost their jobs as a result of the privatisation of the OPT telecoms company and the SEEG water and electricity corporation. In Togo, 2,000 workers could be retrenched as a consequence of the privatisation of the OTP phosphates company. In Nigeria alone, the formal sector lost between half a million and one million jobs as a consequence of the privatisations combined with the economic crisis during the past military regimes, says the Nigeria Labour Congress deputy general secretary John Odah.

In Congo-Brazzaville, where the oil, water, electricity, telecoms and railways are scheduled for privatisation, the government has not yet made compensation provisions for job losses or for a reconversion plan, says the secretary general of the COSYLAC trade union, Rene Serge Blanchard Oba.

Unions are also concerned that privatisation procedures are not always transparent. “Transparency, even though there is a democratic government is something that you cannot take for granted” says Odah. “The whole concept of privatisation is a problem for the trade unions. The best we can do is to know the criteria which are used to sell off our collective wealth” he says.

In some countries, trade unionists are still ruthlessly repressed. The leader of the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions, Jan Sithole has faced several attempts on his life and the government went as far as calling for his deportation, claiming he was not a Swazi national.

Norbert Tetevi Gbikpi Benissan, the secretary general of the Union Nationale des Syndicats Independants du Togo was arrested for one week in January 2000, because of his organisation’s support for a teachers’ strike.

According to unionist Fouad Ben Seddik all these consequences stem from global competition in which governments are trying to create attractive conditions for foreign investment, not only by offering tax holidays but also by crushing workers rights. However, since everybody is doing the same world-wide, at the end of the day, there is no real comparative advantage. But the social cost of this competition will be enormous, he warns.

Unions launch new strategies

Unions are now launching new strategies in response to these challenges. Since the formal sector is shrinking everywhere, unions can no longer confine their role to protection of employment rights and the fight for salary increases. Unions are becoming increasingly involved in the organisation of the informal sector. Benin in that regard is a test-case.

In 18 months, the CSAB and UNSTB confederations managed to affiliate 25,000 workers, including motor-bike-taxi drivers, market shopkeepers, tailors, dressmakers and the Cotonou port agents. The unions created a savings bank, offer micro-credits and try to set up social insurance and pension schemes. They also co-ordinate demonstrations. In South Africa, the Unions have also become instrumental in raising awareness and putting pressure on the government and corporations to respond more effectively to the devastating effects of the HIV-AIDS epidemic.

Unions are also organising solidarity networks. The government of Mauritius has been warned that if working conditions do not improve in the EPZs, the American Federation of Labour and European trade unions might launch world-wide campaigns to alert consumers about the unacceptable working conditions. Another plan is for European and American unions to exert pressure on their own governments to force the World Bank and the IMF to make their loans conditional to the implementation of ILO rules.

Although globalisation has severely undermined the trade union movement, it would be a serious mistake to conclude that unions have become powerless overnight.

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