Conference on Organized labour
Responses to the Conference Paper
Professor Kwamina Panford
Department of African American Studies, Northwestern University, Boston, USA
31 August 1998
Please find my response/reactions and questions and issues that we may all address. Most of my concerns relate to Africa with special focus on Ghana. But I assume other trade unions and labor groups have similar concerns.
1. With respect to the revival/survival of labor associations, especially trade unions there is the tendency to expect or require these asociations to, eg., organize the unemployed, workers in the informal sector and more women.
Bearing in mind the facts that trade unions are not as strong as they used to we need to explore how they can or do get the resources to organize these new sectors. I refer to a situation common in Africa or the case of the Ghana TUC in which membership dropped to apprx. ½ million in 1994 from over 700,000 in 1990. Here I refer to not only losses in membership but also dwindling dues and hence finances needed for further organizing. This problem is what I refer to as "doing more with less". I am interested in processes used by union leaders to decide on why and how to organize which non traditional workers. How do they persuade their members about the need to organize workers who are not part of their work groups?
Three or four interesting Ghana cases can be studied: The Timber Workers Organizing small scale timber cutters; the Commercial Workers organizing barbers and hair dresses and Photographers. Since its founding, the GPRTU, comprising commercial vehicle owners/drivers and their assistants have always played unique industrial relations and non collective bargaining roles. It is now responsible for vehicle safety and the collection of taxes for local and other government agents. They also check over-speeding and the use of fire extinguishers by drivers. It helps in the acquisition of finances for purchasing vehicles. My point is that these present god opportunities to understand the expanded roles of unions. I wish to propose that in relation to these types of activities, we undertake an expanded or current study of issues in FA Parry's 1995 study of institutional linkages between trade unions and informal sectors in Africa/other developing regions.
According the ILO's 1997-98 World Labour Report, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe's growth in union membership clearly deviate from trends in Africa and the rest of the world. I recommend that we examine why and how these countries are experiencing union growth. Are there lessons to be learned?
In terms of why unions are threatened we have a general sense that in the public sector there are losses in membership due to government cuts, but my sense is that we do not know how many jobs are lost in Africa due to trade/import liberalization. We also need to assess how export processing zones, new service industries such as tourism are able to replace jobs in terms of numbers and impact on wage levels. My concern here include the notion that competition for attracting investors could make it difficult to offer good working conditions.
This should be at the for front of our discussions. We need to define carefully what we include in our study of unions/workers associations. I believe we include all associations of workers.
One of the current paradoxes of industrial relations in Ghana and I assume in other countries that have undergone political transitions, there is a situation in which on the one hand unions are pressed under economic austerity measures, heightened global competition etc. but also because of the new political liberalization, may now have new opportunities/challenges. A case is that of Ghana. The 1992 Constitution incorporates for the first time the right of workers to affiliate national and internationally. Workers/other groups can demonstrate more freely.
We need to document and assess how unions are using these new opportunities. The Ghana YUC since 1992, eg., has been very busy on the human rights front. It has held several workshops, seminars. etc. It would be useful to examine the rational for this trend and who is sponsoring them and why. On the whole Ghana would be very interesting to include in this study due to how the unions have evolved and also their relations with different governments and their new roles. I wish to note that in Ghana in particular, the new macro-economic policies of the 1980'/90's prevented the TUC and its affiliates from asserting their autonomy and emerging as one of the strongest/independent unions in Africa/the developing world.
There is also the fact that for the first time non TUC unions have been established successfully.
One interesting point about the Ghana unions is that they do lot more non collective bargaining activities than most people tend to be aware of. But considering their limited finances and the Histradrut experience in Israel, can unions take more social roles as I asked earlier? As part of the solution, do unions need better public relations and better education of the public about what they do? Also realistically, to what extend can unions/labour associations create jobs to replace those lost due to structural adjustment.
The new Coalition in South Africa involving trade unions sounds fascinating. But the question that arises is that it might have been born out of circumstances unique to this country because of its peculiar history. One ought to ask, how could this serve as a model to other countries?
Lastly, in the case of Africa, what has been the role of OUATUU in all these issues/concerns?
Concerning the overall issue of the roles of unions, we will need to grapple with the problem of the fact that unions and their members tend to reflect and be part of local/national communities and are influenced by dominant national/international trends. Thus in this era of promoting private welfare, free marketism and individualism (as emphasized by new Human Resource Management) how can unions still operate on the assumption of economic and social solidarity? This brings us to whether unions are still relevant or not.
Please feel free to ask me for further comments or clarification of issues. Thank you.
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