Trade Unions and Party Politics pot

Preface vi1 Introduction: Trade unions and party politics in Africa 1 Björn Beckman and Lloyd Sachikonye 2 Autonomy or political ailiation?. Senegalese trade unions in the face of econom

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Preface vi

1 Introduction: Trade unions and party politics in Africa 1

Björn Beckman and Lloyd Sachikonye

2 Autonomy or political ailiation? Senegalese trade unions

in the face of economic and political reforms 23

Alfred Inis Ndiaye

3 Disengagement from party politics: Achievements and challenges

Emmanuel O Akwetey with David Dorkenoo

Björn Beckman and Salihu Lukman

5 Trade unions, liberalisation and politics in Uganda 85

John-Jean Barya

6 The labour movement and democratisation in Zimbabwe 109

Lovemore Matombo and Lloyd M Sachikonye

7 Unions and parties in South Africa: CoSatu and the aNc

Roger Southall and Edward Webster

8 Serving workers or serving the party? Trade unions and

this book originates in a conference that was held at the Parktonian Hotel in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, from 21–22 July 2006, hosted by the Sociology of Work Unit (Swop) at the University of the Witwatersrand

It preceded the World Congress of Sociology that was organised by the International Sociological Association (ISa) in Durban the subsequent week, where a meeting of the ISa’s Research Committee on the Labour Movement (rc44) was coordinated by Eddie Webster and Sakhela Buhlungu of Swop

As rc44 is global in its orientation, the idea was to hold a special pre-ISa conference focusing on Africa, the host continent of the World Congress The pre-ISa conference was a joint undertaking between Swop, the Politics

of Development Group, Stockholm University, and the Agrarian and Labour Studies Department at the Institute of Development Studies (IdS), University

of Zimbabwe It built on a network of labour scholars, including an earlier workshop in Harare that resulted in a 2001 book on liberalisation and the restructuring of state–society relations in Africa, edited by Björn Beckman and Lloyd Sachikonye, as well as a symposium in Harare in July 2002, also organised by the IdS Trade unionists were invited to the conference and joint papers by labour scholars and unionists were encouraged, as relected in this book The president of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (zctu), Lovemore Matombo, and other leading Zimbabwean unionists contributed actively The Congress of South African Trade Unions (coSatu), the leading trade union centre of the hosting nation, was well represented One session was chaired by Zwelinzima Vavi, the coSatu general secretary, and South African unionists contributed to panels and debates The Zambia experience, not covered in this book, was presented by a unionist The conference also involved union-based scholars from the African Labour Research Network that brings together union-linked research outits, such as South Africa’s National Labour and Economic Development Institute (NaledI), the Labour Resource and Research Institute of Namibia, the Labour and Economic

Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe, and the research units of Ghana Trade Union Congress, Zambia Congress of Trade Unions, and the Nigeria Labour Congress The director of NaledI ofered a lead speech

to one session Although African in focus, the conference contained a comparative element, taking advantage of the presence of labour scholars from non-African countries who had come for rc44, including Rob Lambert and Peter Evans who served as discussants and rapporteurs A comparative paper drawing on the Indonesian and South Asian experience by Olle Törnquist of the University of Oslo was also presented but is not included in this all-African collection Funding for the conference was provided by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, a foundation closely associated with the German Social Democratic Party and specially concerned with the union–party link

A Swedish research grant (Sida/Sarec) allowed African participants to attend the subsequent Durban ISa conference and the meetings of rc44 Both the conference in Braamfontein and the subsequent rc44 meeting in Durban were ably coordinated by Anthea Metcalfe on behalf of Swop and the three cooperating institutions

Although originating in the 2006 Braamfontein conference, the chapters of this book have been developed further to take account of subsequent developments Some are new altogether, including the South Africa chapter by Roger Southall and Eddie Webster that seeks to make sense of the Polokwane events The Zimbabwe situation has continued to deteriorate and some of the participants in the workshop, including the zctu president, have been subjected to brutal violence by the henchmen of the regime The concluding chapter by Sakhela Buhlungu, one of the editors,

is also a fresh contribution to the debates We are happy to include Herbert Jauch’s piece on Namibia, also speciically written for the book Sadly, the continued repression of independent unions in Egypt has prevented the inclusion of a chapter by Rahma Refaat, a scholar–activist from the Centre for Trade Union and Workers Services, who contributed efectively to the discussions in Braamfontein and Durban

We are grateful for the inancial support provided by the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Johannesburg towards the production of this book.

The book is dedicated to Eddie Webster, a South African labour scholar, who has been instrumental in advancing the ield of labour studies globally, and whose achievements were celebrated in Johannesburg in June

2009 to mark the occasion of his oicial retirement from the Department of Sociology of the University of the Witwatersrand We wish him a continued productive life!

Acronyms and abbreviations

aatuf All Africa Trade Union Federation afl–cIo American Federation of Labour–Congress of Industrial

OrganisationsaGoa African Growth and Opportunity ActaNc African National Congress

aof Afrique Occidentale Française (French West Africa)Bee black economic empowerment

cNtS Confédération Nationale des Travailleurs du Sénégal coftu Central Organisation of Free Trade Unions (Uganda)coSatu Congress of South African Trade Unions

cpp Convention People’s Party (Ghana)cSa Confédération des Syndicats Autonomesepa Economic Partnership Agreement epz Export Processing Zone Act (Namibia)eSap economic structural adjustment programme

eu European Union

fc Forces du Changement foSatu Federation of South African Trade Unions fue Federation of Uganda Employers

futu Federation of Uganda Trade Unions Gear Growth, Employment and Reconstruction Gtuc Ghana Trade Union Congress

Icftu International Confederation of Free Trade UnionsIdS Institute of Development Studies (University of Zimbabwe)Ilo International Labour Organisation

IMf International Monetary Fund INec Independent National Electoral CommissionISa International Sociological Association lra Labour Relations Act

Mdc Movement for Democratic Change (Zimbabwe)

Mp Member of ParliamentMwt Marxist Worker Tendency Nactu National Council of Trade Unions NaledI National Labour and Economic Development Institute

(South Africa)Nca National Constitutional Assembly (Zimbabwe)Nec National Executive Committee

Nedlac National Economic Development and Labour Council NGo non-governmental organisation

Nlc Nigeria Labour Congress Nlc National Liberation Council (Ghana)Notu National Organisation of Trade Unions (Uganda)Nra National Resistance Army (Uganda)

NrM National Resistance Movement (Uganda)NrM–o National Resistance Movement–Organisation (Uganda)NSSf National Social Security Fund (Uganda)

NuBIfIe National Union of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions

Employees (Nigeria)NulGe National Union of Local Government Employees (Nigeria)NuNw National Union of Namibian Workers

opo Ovamboland People’s Organisation pdS Parti Démocratique Sénégalais poSa Public Order and Security Act (Zimbabwe)

pS Parti Socialiste (Socialist Party, Senegal)rc44 Research Committee on the Labour Movement (of the ISa)Sacotu South African Confederation of Trade Unions

Sacp South African Communist Party Sactu South African Congress of Trade Unions Sap structural adjustment programme Sdf Social Democratic Front (Ghana)SoNatel Société Nationale des Télécommunications du Sénégal

SudeS Syndicat Unique et Démocratique des Enseignants du Sénégal Swapo South West Africa People’s Organisation

Swop Sociology of Work Unit (University of the Witwatersrand)tuc Trades Union Congress (Ghana)

tuc Trade Union Congress (Britain)tucNa Trade Union Congress of Namibia ucc University of Cape Coast (Ghana)

uK United Kingdomulc Uganda Labour CongressuNSaS Union Nationale des Syndicats Autonomes du Sénégal upc Uganda Peoples’ Congress

uSa United States of AmericautGlawu Uganda Textile, Garments, Leather and Allied Workers’ Union utuc Uganda Trade Unions’ Congress

zaNu-pf Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front zctu Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions

zftu Zimbabwe Federation of Trade unions

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Introduction: Trade unions and party politics in Africa

Björn Beckman and Lloyd Sachikonye

Labour movements and political parties

are trade unions capable of enhancing their political inf luence through engaging with political parties while simultaneously protecting their autonomy? Do they use political parties to transform society or are they part

of the status quo? Are they primarily concerned with protecting the special interests of a small and dwindling wage-earner population or are they voicing the grievances of a wider popular constituency? These are the core questions addressed in this volume about the politics of Africa’s labour movements The volume looks specifically at the way in which trade unions engage with political parties either by being part of them, taking a lead in their formation,

or refusing to join party politics altogether There is a strong tradition globally of close union–party relations In Europe in particular, trade unions have played a crucial role in the formation of social democratic or labour parties Here there is a prevailing notion of the ‘labour movement’ being composed of two wings, a union wing and a party wing Unionists are often recruited into leading party positions and unions play a key role in funding

‘their’ parties They are also occasionally, as in the British case, granted bulk voting rights in party congresses In a number of European countries, especially in the northern parts, social democratic or labour parties have played a dominant role on the political scene, as a governing party, a part of

a governing coalition, or as the mainstay of the political opposition There is

a built-in conf lict between being part of a government, actual or prospective, and negotiating a collective agreement on behalf of your members Union

leaders are often accused of betraying their immediate constituency either by supporting the policies of their immediate party allies or in order to ensure privileged access to political power for the leadership itself The emergence of communist parties after the First World War was linked to political divisions within the labour movements over the wider societal role of labour and, in particular, over a ‘revolutionary’ or ‘reformist’ road to political power Where communist parties became ruling parties in a one-party context, as in the Soviet Union and its allies, trade unions lost much of their independent clout although they often retained privileged access to government and welfare benefits In much of Latin America and in Asia, the strong links between trade unions and political parties were reproduced along similar lines to those in Europe However, unions have occasionally been fragmented on party lines, as in India where each political party, including the Hindu nationalists, operates their own unions This is similar to the situation reported in the Senegalese case in Chapter 2 The colonial experience has left its mark on the union–party relation with trade unions playing an important role in liberation movements, often being incorporated into a dominant political party that claimed to represent the emerging nation This, we shall see, is central to the African historical experience.

Labour movements are politically contested, both by those who identify themselves as labour and by those who are part of a different camp, either as employers or as governments that seek to ensure modes of control and regulation in line with strategies of their own Central to the labour movements, however, is the notion of a common interest as determined by the position of labour in production In both the social democratic and the communist traditions, there is the notion of a conf lict between labour and capital, between employees and employers, although obscured in the case

of ruling parties and collective forms of ownership In the post-colonial situation, the conf lict is often suppressed with reference to wider notions of national liberation and national development How do contemporary African

trade unions strike the balance between such wider commitments and tive bargaining on behalf of workers in individual workplaces? How do their ties to political parties affect this balance?

collec-Unions engage in politics most directly by intervening in the political processes and institutions that regulate and control labour relations and the price of labour, that is, labour legislation, labour courts, and government labour departments with their officials engaged in monitoring the system

To what extent do they depend on links to political parties in advancing their position in the workplace? Governments and political parties differ in their views of these things and workers therefore get involved in politics in order to ensure labour-friendly outcomes But how can workplace matters and issues of wider national development be separated? Conditions of work are fundamentally affected by the regular supply of reasonably priced water, energy, transport and communication, and other factors that are essential for production and employment Unions therefore also engage themselves politi-cally in order to inf luence conditions of production in the interests of their members Similarly, the value of wages depends on developments outside the workplace, on consumer prices, the costs of housing and producing a family, the services needed to ensure the health and education of workers’ dependents, and the care offered for the elderly, disabled and unemployed This, too, becomes an area where unions are under pressure from their members to inf luence politics Political parties and political actors are differ-ently committed in this respect, thus affecting the allegiances of unions and workers Programmatic differences of ideology and macroeconomic policy contribute importantly to unions’ political identifications Apart from causing unions to engage politically at the local level, these differences also bring them into confrontation with international financial institutions and development agencies that have their own agenda and views of an appro-priate policy framework Unions are commonly seen as a stumbling block to international strategies of privatisation and neo-liberal reforms of trade and property rights

However, international institutions, the International Labour Organisation (Ilo) in particular, take an active part in producing norms that commit governments to certain standards of labour rights Over the years, unions in Africa have appealed to the conventions produced by the Ilo, often ratified by African governments, in order to uphold their right to organise in the face of repressive governments The Ilo is a tripartite body that involves governments, employers and employees alike What collective stake do they have in advancing labour rights? Does it suggest that a union-based labour regime is part and parcel of an international agenda? Trade unions

in economically advanced countries often immerse themselves in support of unions in post-colonial societies Trade union rivalries at the international level tend to reproduce themselves at the level of national trade union politics Party–union links were central to such foreign involvement, espe-cially at the time of the great power rivalries of the Cold War The political autonomy of trade unions was emphasised by one side at a time when the other side pushed for their incorporation in the revolutionary strategy pursued by the party Although Cold War trade union politics disintegrated with the collapse of the Soviet Union, union–party links inherited from that period have continued relevance This is demonstrated, for instance, in the cooperation between the Congress of South African Trade Unions (coSatu) and the South African Communist Party (Sacp) over issues of succession and policy orientation in the African National Congress (aNc) (see Chapter 7) Labour relations in individual countries are affected by international union solidarity where external bodies carry with them their own notions of union–party relations The workshop that preceded this volume, for instance, was supported by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, a foundation closely associated with the German Social Democratic Party

The African experience

Historically, African trade unions have been active in broad popular struggles for independence and liberation (Freund 1988) They have often been central in resistance to authoritarianism, fascism and dictatorship (Kraus 2007) This meant extending their concerns and mandate beyond workplace issues and labour-related matters It required their engagement in wider social and political alliances, both with similar-minded groups in civil society and with political parties whose programmes ref lected the concerns and interests of the workers While seeking to enhance the entitlements

of workers, African labour movements have demanded social spending

on a political platform To this end, the movements have sought to build a

‘rights-based agenda for development’, making civil and political liberties accessible to a broad spectrum of the polity (Jose 2002: 14) Experiences from elsewhere suggest that civil and political liberties are essential precon-ditions for converting the economic interests of workers into rights and entitlements Unions have allied themselves to groups and movements that share their values and concerns This has enabled the labour movements to reach out to a larger population than those directly engaged in wage work,

so enhancing their legitimacy and promoting their views on development, equity and justice This is the case with their role in nationalist and libera-tion movements For this purpose, they have also developed relationships with political parties, sometimes participating directly in governing parties and alliances In some instances, the unions themselves have provided the core of the political opposition, as in the case of Zimbabwe, discussed in Chapter 6 More commonly in the African context, unions have stayed out

of government, in some cases developing a platform for ‘social dialogue’ which allows them to have input into the policy process In other cases the relationship to the government has been based on mistrust and confronta-tion, as in the Zambian case where unions were instrumental in the alliance that facilitated the post-Kaunda transition but failed, despite their success

at the polls, to ensure any significant inf luence in government, let alone

succeed in reforming the labour regime (Akwetey 2001) In Ghana, unions have deliberately decided to stay out of party politics, largely in an attempt to avoid being roped in by either side in what has turned out to be a two-party contest While strengthening their political autonomy, just as in the Zambian case, the Ghanaian unions have failed to ensure much inf luence on the state (Akwetey 2001).

In the post-colonial situation, African unions were directly affected

by the policies of the Bretton Wood institutions – the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Their resistance to the structural adjustment programmes (Saps) promoted by these institutions and by foreign donors was central to union experiences (Beckman & Sachikonye 2001; Sibanda & Nyamukapa 2000) There has been continued pursuit of neo-liberal policies

on most of the continent, although the Saps have been replaced by Poverty Reduction Strategy Programmes, also pushed by the international financial institutions Yet, trade unions continue to be at the forefront of resistance to the policies of privatisation and neo-liberal reform Have they had an impact? Have they been able to offer organised political leadership to wider social forces that share their concern? Have their relations to political parties both

in government and in opposition been able to give direction to their political intervention? The questions of links to political parties and the defence

of union autonomy have become part of this effort to resist a prevailing, internationally imposed hegemony at the level of economic policy

The crisis of Africa’s wage-earning economies

Africa’s wage-earning classes are currently in disarray After independence they grew fast with the expansion of the public economy As states sank into indebtedness, the position of the wage-earning economy was undermined (Beckman & Sachikonye 2001) State-led national projects were in crisis and governments were under pressure to adjust Wage employment was badly hit and unions sought to disengage from the state–corporatist order which seemed to have lost its capacity to deliver Unions resisted retrenchments,

cuts in wages, privatisation, and the deterioration of social services They demanded greater autonomy as well as inf luence on the direction of govern-ment policies Yet, unemployment in the formal economy was high and growing fast Formal employment patterns were undermined by the growing proportion of casual, part-time and subcontracted workers Manufacturing

in particular was badly hit by the liberalisation of foreign trade and the rise

of major low-income export producers elsewhere Sectors such as textile and clothing have experienced rapid deindustrialisation under the impact of the

f lood of cheap imports Overall, wage employment has not been sustained despite the growth in some services, including telecommunications In most

of Africa, trade unions have been shrinking in membership

A major challenge to the credibility of organised labour as representing the workers is the size of the informal economy and the process of informalisa-tion Most workers are not employed on an indefinitely full-time basis at the workplace of the employer Most survive by participating in activities where there is no formal employer as a bargaining counterpart Moreover, most of Africa’s population are farmers, traders or craftsmen Trade unions represent

a small minority of the working people of Africa and it is not surprising that parties are able to marginalise them politically Small and shrinking unions engage in a struggle for survival in the face of falling real wages, deindustri-alisation, privatisation, outsourcing and casualisation Can they still play a role in politics? Can their own grievances be transformed into wider political leadership? Is organised labour capable of offering voice and leadership to a wider range of popular forces? Can it build a parliamentary constituency of its own? Are trade unions capable of developing political responses that go beyond the immediate issues of employment and wages? In parts of the continent, we have seen the emergence of new grassroots movements which seek to provide a voice for sections of the popular classes that fall outside the immediate domain

of organised labour Do they represent an alternative social force, a true popular alternative to an increasingly marginalised trade union movement, unable to voice wider popular grievances? For many, notions of a new ‘social movement unionism’ seem to offer a road out of what they argue is the dead

end of formal unionism Is it the ability to engage with wider social forces and,

in particular, to play an active role in the organisation of the informal economy, which makes unions meet their wider political responsibilities (Bieler et al 2008)? Can the unionised workers and their leaders in particular be consid-ered a ‘labour aristocracy’ that caters only for those already relatively secure and privileged?

It has long been recognised that large anonymous workplaces are conducive to collective consciousness and organisation Similarly, it is acknowledged that the predominance of self-employment, fragmented class relations and multiple class identities is usually a poor basis for the emergence of alternative forms of popular democratic organisations In organisational terms, it gives wage labour an advantage over the small producers and traders that dominate numerically the African scene The scope for intervening in politics, however, also depends on the way particular social groups are situated in the dynamics of the political economy, including their insertion globally How central is wage labour to the contradictions that constitute these societies as peripheral? This, of course, varies strongly between African countries, depending on the nature of the political economy – some, for example Senegal and Uganda (see Chapters 2 and 5), are dominated by an agrarian-based export economy while others, such as South Africa and Nigeria (Chapters 7 and 4), have been able to develop a substantial wage-earning population, both in industrial production and in services The size and nature of the wage-earning class vary between countries, including those where public sector employment is dominant and where commodity production plays a significant role The political importance of unions is not just a numerical issue but concerns the strategic location of organised labour

in the economy Simultaneously, the issue of alliances and the relations between labour and other groups in society become central in understanding the political role of trade unions

Alliances: Trade unions, civil society and democracy

Post-colonial societies are engaged in a complex task of nation building and economic reconstruction In many instances, state institutions have been appropriated by individuals and groups who use them to serve narrow personal and sectional interests Some societies have been penetrated by international agencies in pursuit of their own agendas In both cases, states have failed to establish solid roots within the local political economy, roots that are capable of offering direction to or enforcing the accountability of either popular or ruling class forces on the ground It is therefore common

to look to civil society organisations as a possible source for reconstructing the state Of course, both intervening agencies from outside and local political groups have their own notions of what kind of ‘civil society’ will be supportive of their aspirations For some, entrepreneurial classes capable of ensuring market-oriented policies are central to their notions of civil society Others look for the organisation of groups that are expected to infuse the state with some level of popular legitimacy (Harriss et al 2004; Törnquist et

al 2009) How central is an organised working class in this respect? In the African context, a recent collection (Kraus 2007) demonstrated how labour was at the forefront of the struggles for more democratic institutions and democratic rule that swept Africa during the tail end of the last century Vibrant, militant and independent trade unions, it is argued, provided a bulwark against authoritarianism Critical to the achievement of organised labour in this respect was its ability to strike alliances and provide political leadership to a wider range of social forces, including the forces battling apartheid in South Africa How sustainable was this transition to liberal democracy? The cases reported in this volume’s study point in different directions In the Senegalese case, unions played an active role in over-turning an effective one-party state, supporting the opposition led by Wade, only to find new streaks of authoritarianism entrenching themselves in the state In Nigeria, unions failed to have any significant impact on the ‘return

to democracy’ in 1999 that was at first greeted with much expectation,

despite repeated attempts to challenge the policies of the state, especially over petrol prices We are yet to see the demise of the Mugabe regime, despite more than a decade of valiant union resistance, including an active role in the formation of an opposition party In the Namibian case (Chapter 8, this volume), it is argued that unions have been effectively subordinated to the one-party state In South Africa, coSatu’s spectacular intervention in inf lu-encing succession in the aNc at the Polokwane conference in December 2007 (Chapter 7) may suggest that the labour movement has been able to retain the political clout that it demonstrated in the anti-apartheid struggles Yet,

it may be argued that such intervention carried few gains for the rank and file of the labour movement, whose authority was appropriated by a narrow stratum of ambitious union officials It is a contested issue

Some of the alliances may have built-in mechanisms that ensure the subordination of unions, even substituting for the building of strong union organisational structures Does a comparison between the Ghanaian and the South African experience point to differences in this respect? In the former case, the disengagement of Ghana’s Trades Union Congress from party politics went hand in hand with an awareness of huge organisational deficits that the leaders were anxious to address In the South African case, coSatu may continue to create the impression of a powerful federation, not least after its dramatic intervention in aNc succession politics at Polokwane Yet, it may well be that politically inf luential national centres, such as coSatu, are outmanoeuvred by their party allies once victory is achieved The risk is, of course, particularly great if the organisational life of the individual industrial unions is weak There is no doubt that political parties are anxious to ensure union support at the time of elections But can they be trusted once they are voted into power? How easily are unions marginalised in such alliances? Should they be more concerned with putting their own house in order?

The crisis of neo-liberal globalisation

The dramatic collapse of neo-liberal globalisation in 2008 suggests a new urgency to the alternative development paths advocated by organised labour Unions in the west competed for state attention in infusing resources

in support of affected industries to save employment and the ‘national economy’ Unions everywhere have been consistently suspicious of or hostile

to the policies of neo-liberalism, privatisation and deregulation Do they have

an alternative to the market-driven politics that currently faces a major loss of popular confidence? Some unions think so, which is why they keep organ-ising themselves politically and trying to intervene in the political process

In the African context, while so far largely involved in defensive strategies within a hegemonic neo-liberal paradigm, the current crisis may open up space for a return to the popular aspirations for modernisation and social welfare that informed the struggle for national liberation The political power

of labour does not lie only in its strategic location in the workplace and its capacity to organise, but also in the power of its ideas The historic alliances that have existed between labour and political parties need to be reconsidered

in the context of the new global economy

Trade unions and political parties: The options

This volume, in exploring the experiences of trade unions in seven African countries, points to two major options confronted by all of them One relates

to the conflict between autonomy and political engagement, the other to the substance of the social transformation envisaged Are trade unions able to intervene politically to influence the direction of public policy? How do they intervene most effectively? Is it as part of a political party, whether in govern-ment or opposition, or should unions maintain their independence from the political actors of the parliamentary arena? Can organised labour assert its influence directly on the state as an independent pressure group? What avenue

do tripartite negotiations that include both government and employers provide

for influencing policy? Autonomy, on the one hand, and influence, on the other, provides a key dimension of unions’ engagement with political parties,

as discussed in this volume There is clearly a tension between the two but they are not necessarily contradictory Some unionists see closeness to government and the ruling party as a means of enhancing influence Does this necessarily imply loss of ‘autonomy’ or can the two, as argued by the coSatu leaders, be combined? Others argue, as in the Ghanaian case, that disengagement from political contestation on a party basis is a precondition for political influence How effectively has disengagement been used as a strategy for influencing policy or does it imply accepting the rules of the game as laid down by others? Issues of autonomy versus influence cannot be separated from a second key concern confronting the unions, that relating to the substance of the policy that

is envisaged Is the concern primarily one of ensuring that they can engage effectively in collective bargaining on behalf of their members? Do unions have a vision of a different social order? Is this why they engage themselves politically? Clearly, the decision of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (zctu) to promote the formation of a political party of opposition sprang out

of dissatisfaction with the current political order of that country Of course, central to that dissatisfaction was the failure of the regime to listen to the grievances of the workers, especially those voiced through the unions The decision of coSatu to throw itself behind a change of leadership in the aNc was prompted by a critique of the economic policies of the Mbeki government and a belief that a more union-friendly and less neo-liberal policy regime was possible Will Jacob Zuma bring the expected change? Most importantly, on whose behalf are unions intervening politically? Is it to serve the narrow self-interests of union careerists concerned with creating the right conditions for their own climb to power, as some critics would argue? Or are they spear-heading an alternative social order, a ‘democratic developmental state’ capable

of delivering employment and social welfare to the masses that are currently excluded? Who is defining that alternative social order and who is ensuring that those who provide its mouthpieces are accountable to the wider popular constituency in whose interests they claim to act?

Southern Africa: Incorporation and resistance

What do the country experiences tell us? Are the unions capable of enhancing political inf luence through engaging with political parties while simultaneously protecting their autonomy as a popular democratic force? Are they capable of asserting an alternative political agenda? Are they transforming society or operating in the context of a status quo or perhaps even defending it? Are they protecting the special interests of a small and dwindling wage-earner population or acting as the ‘vanguard’ of a wider popular constituency?

The disappointment with the failure of unions to offer leadership to

a wider range of popular forces is most strongly articulated in the chapter

on Namibia (Chapter 8) The National Union of Namibian Workers (NuNw), not the only federation but the dominant one and closely linked to the South West Africa People’s Organisation, the ruling party, has failed, according to Herbert Jauch, to develop its transformative potential and the wider popular constituency and support that it once had as a result of its place in the libera-tion struggle Instead, it has allowed itself to be incorporated by the ruling party in its swing to the right Its protests against the neo-liberal orientation

of the regime have been muted Foreign capital, as in the case of Ramatex (discussed in Chapter 8), has succeeded in establishing links deep into the state Most deplorable, in this view, is the way in which individual union leaders have been co-opted into positions of power by the party–state, thereby obstructing the role of the unions as an autonomous social force While unionists in the NuNw claim that being a ‘labour-wing’ of the ruling party enhances political inf luence, the author suggests otherwise In Namibia’s case, closeness to political power has spelled not only loss of autonomy, but also loss of the capacity to pursue an alternative agenda

Is the story of coSatu, the leading South African confederation, engaged in a triple alliance with the aNc and the Sacp, any different? Or is NuNw merely ‘ahead’ of coSatu in this respect, mirroring things to come? Much depends on what interpretation is given to what happened at the aNc

conference in Polokwane when the leadership of Thabo Mbeki was swept aside and replaced by that of Jacob Zuma, with the support of a coalition spearheaded by coSatu and the Sacp Polokwane is central to Roger Southall’s and Eddie Webster’s contribution in Chapter 7 Does it suggest that the unions have effectively utilised the potential of political influence provided

by the alliance or have they been made use of as part of a personalised game for power and influence within the aNc? Will the aNc under Zuma’s leader-ship be in a position to pursue alternative development policies, reflecting coSatu’s critique of the government’s neo-liberal orientation? Or will it be more of the same, possibly with a more ‘populist’ gloss? A major critique of the Mbeki government was its failure to address mass unemployment Does the coSatu-led coalition that brought Zuma to power suggest an alternative?

Or does it rather provide fresh openings for an alternative group of individuals who will now be able to climb to the top? The authors of Chapter 7, while pointing at the evidence in support of alternative readings of the situation, remain prepared to give coSatu and the new aNc leadership the benefit of the doubt – unlike in the Namibian case, where the author highlights the failure

of NuNw to live up to expectations As in the case of Namibia, however, the restructuring of the labour market and the way in which formal unionisation

is undermined are major worries in South Africa, as is the failure of coSatu

to reach a wider ‘social movement’ constituency Yet, unlike in Namibia, it

is argued, coSatu has retained an important element of autonomy vis-à-vis the ruling party Much of the difference can be explained in structural terms, especially with reference to levels of industrialisation, wealth and the formation of a wage-earning class in the public sector economy, all of which have contributed to notions of South Africa’s ‘exceptionalism’ in Africa However, coSatu closely follows what is going on in the region, including when unions intervene politically and meet with repression, as in the case of Zimbabwe (Chapter 6) CoSatu has been a strong supporter of the zctu, the Zimbabwean confederation, in its conflict with the Mugabe regime, often strongly at variance with the ‘cautious’ approach of the Mbeki government

Conditions in Zimbabwe continue to deteriorate Perennial shortages

of production inputs translate into lay-offs as firms downsize or close down

At the time of writing (late 2008), inf lation had gone totally out of control and the collapse of the water supply and health services resulted in a deadly cholera epidemic The refusal of the Mugabe government to concede defeat

in the 2008 elections led to intensified international pressures for power sharing with the political opposition led by the Movement for Democratic Change (Mdc) However, a substantive agreement remains elusive and the situation continues to deteriorate Workers are pushed into individual survival strategies and both organised labour and other civil society organisa-tions face fresh repression The zctu continues to be subjected to violent harassment and intimidation Although instrumental in the formation of the Mdc in 1999, the zctu is not a part of it There is no formal or informal alliance While the multi-class basis of the Mdc is ref lected in its ideological outlook, the Mugabe regime seems convinced that the zctu is a major supporter of the political opposition and seeks to destroy it The organising and funding of rival unions, although largely ineffectual in terms of building a credible pro-government union centre, serves as a major source of harassment of existing ‘legitimate’ unions The zctu battles to defend itself against repression and fragmentation and to maintain its internal cohesion

In the midst of this, it engages in tripartite negotiations in an effort to stabilise society and the economy, struggling to balance a dual agenda of both seeking dialogue and exercising pressure In relation to the Mdc, its policies are based on both solidarity and autonomy, according to the authors

of Chapter 6, zctu president Lovemore Matombo and Lloyd Sachikonye As the largest organisation in civil society, the zctu continues to build alliances and offer leadership By allying itself, through the Mdc, to other groups in opposition committed to a liberal–capitalist road, the agenda of the unions

is not transformative in the sense envisaged by the radical critics of NuNw and coSatu However, it is concerned with the overthrow of a political order that is stif ling national development In defending the rights of workers to

organise themselves autonomously from the state, the zctu is part of a wider defence of organisational rights in society, transcending the interests of a wage-earning population

West Africa: Pluralism and autonomy

Four other experiences are discussed in the volume, three from West Africa and one from East Africa In both Senegal (Chapter 2) and Ghana (Chapter 3), disengaging from dominant political parties rather than establishing a political party of one’s own is the prevailing concern, although the patterns

of party–union links in the two cases are very different While both sets of unions have strong links historically to the political party that led the country

to national independence, Ghana’s unions were able to dissociate themselves from the party in government and have fiercely asserted their autonomy in the face of repeated attempts to rope them in or to establish political control from above In Senegal, while the idea of a one-party state was abandoned

at an early point in favour of a more liberal political regime, it was only

in March 2000 that the uninterrupted rule of the Parti Socialiste (pS) of Leopold Senghor and Abdou Diouf was brought to an end with the election

of Abdoulaye Wade The largest trade union centre, Confédération Nationale des Travailleurs du Sénégal (cNtS), had been officially affiliated to the ruling party, although workers’ worries about structural adjustment and neo-liberal reforms had caused a shift towards greater union autonomy This was demon-strated, for instance, in the two general strikes in 1993 and 1997 that were facilitated by inter-union cooperation within a strongly pluralist structure (Tidjani & Ndiaye 2001) After the pS election defeat in 2000, cNtS officially broke off from the party Widespread popular disenchantment with the de facto one-party rule meant that Wade’s election was supported by a broad coalition of centrist and left-wing political parties, many with their own affili-ated trade unions Wade’s party, Parti Démocratique Sénégalais, the dominant opposition party, however, had no history of trade union involvement In government, it sought to replicate the politics of its predecessor, vying for

control of the leading trade union centre and so causing a split between a state-friendly and a more ‘autonomist’ part of cNtS The continued commit-ment of the new regime to neo-liberal policies has caused the disintegration

of the political coalition that brought Wade to power In its attempt to rope in the unions, the regime has been dangling official grants In Chapter 2, Alfred Inis Ndiaye reviews the complex patterns of union–party–state relations and how they have been affected by government economic policies There is the lure of state patronage, especially for union leaders However, the shift towards greater union autonomy and the growth of inter-union cooperation have enhanced the capacity to oppose neo-liberal reforms

Senegal is unique in its development of a plurality of trade union centres, most of which are attached to political parties Typically, however, our cases show the dominance – by law or in actual practice – of one centre,

as derived from its historical role in the anti-colonial struggle This is the case with the Ghana Trade Union Congress (Gtuc), discussed in Chapter 3

by Emmanuel Akwetey A policy of non-association with political parties was adopted by Gtuc in 1992 and was incorporated into its constitution The decision was taken partly in order to distance the Gtuc from its past as

a close affiliate of Kwame Nkrumah’s defunct Convention People’s Party, and as a ‘stand-in’ political opposition in confronting the government of the Busia period It also had an unsuccessful record of forming a party of its own In particular, staying out of party politics was a way of managing the political terrain of the 1990s where it seemed that strict neutrality between the antagonistic Rawlings government and the political opposition was the best avenue not only for survival but for inf luencing politics While Akwetey takes an understanding view of this logic, he notes that the Gtuc has failed

to have much impact on policies that have continued to shift in a neo-liberal direction, especially with the Kufuor presidency after the electoral success of the opposition in 2000

The Nigeria Labour Congress (Nlc) was established by military decree

in 1978 as the sole trade union centre While the merger of previously rival centres was a strategy of enhancing state control, a new radical leadership

ensured continued union autonomy and militancy with repeated tions with the state The organisation was banned twice A more liberal political dispensation after the return to civilian rule in 1999 caused a formal end to organisational monopoly but the Nlc and its affiliates have continued

confronta-to dominate the labour scene The Nlc and its predecessors have a long history of political involvement, both in organising separate labour parties and in supporting other party formations, as in the case of the ill-fated Social Democratic Party of the aborted 1993 elections and the Labour Party that was compelled by military decree to join it (Beckman 1995; Andrae & Beckman 1998/99) Chapter 4 focuses on the Labour Party that was estab-lished in 2003 and how it relates to the wider pattern of alliance building

in society The Nlc was at loggerheads with the Obasanjo regime It has demonstrated a wide popular following and staying power, especially in the repeated clashes over the pricing of local petroleum products It has failed, however, to translate its undoubted political clout into effective parliamentary involvement The new Labour Party is a failure, including in its half-hearted attempts to assert its presence in the grossly corrupt 2007 elections The former president of the Nlc, Adams Oshiomhole, succeeded in winning his home state in a fierce gubernatorial race While certainly drawing on labour’s support, he was not standing on the ticket of the Labour Party Chapter 4 was jointly authored by Björn Beckman and Salihu Lukman At the time of writing a deputy general secretary of the Nlc, Lukman played a central role

in a project to expand the Nlc’s networks in civil society, laying the work for the formation of the Labour Party

ground-In Nigeria, governments have made repeated attempts to undercut existing leaders or promote alternative structures, but with little success Unlike in Senegal where a multitude of parties have their own unions, no political parties of any significance have been able to make an inroad into the Nigerian union camp Unions have similarly failed to have much impact

on party politics, despite a strong tradition of having parties of their own Repeatedly, however, unions have been able to draw on wide popular support

in confronting the state in relation to specific grievances, such as over

increases in the petrol price There are few unionised workers in a society dominated by peasant production, crafts and petty trade and unions have not had much impact on the direction of economic policy Yet, their organisational skills and programmatic concerns have made them the mouthpiece of an alternative popular agenda

Uganda: Authoritarianism, incorporation, and marginalisation

In the cases discussed so far, trade unions continue to play a significant role

in society, despite the smallness of the working class Only in South Africa

is the wage-earning population large enough to make unions a major player

in party politics But also in Zimbabwe, despite the crisis and the dwindling base of the zctu, unions have been instrumental in providing alternative leadership in opposition to an increasingly backward authoritarian state Union autonomy has been effectively sustained in Ghana and Nigeria, despite attempts at suppression, and Nigerian unions have demonstrated a repeated capacity for popular mobilisation In Senegal, the disintegration

of effective one-party domination has reinforced the movement towards greater union autonomy Even in Namibia, where it is suggested that unions have been effectively subordinated by the dominant party, their historical contribution to the struggle for national liberation has generated major gains

in labour legislation, even if these have been subverted by state support for casualisation and neo-liberal labour market policies In a number of African countries, however, unions are weak and have failed to have any significant impact, either as a source of autonomous organisation in society or on public policy As in Uganda, they face an authoritarian and neo-liberal state In Chapter 5, John-Jean Barya reports how the Ugandan union movement has been suppressed and marginalised He suggests that the union leadership has been incorporated by the Museveni regime, primarily through patron–client relations Although seats in Parliament are reserved for labour, the

Mps are compelled to toe the government line Unions find it difficult to take an independent pro-worker stand They have been further emasculated

by changes in economic policy in a neo-liberal direction Interestingly, more progressive labour laws have recently been introduced, not because of successful local union pressure but as a condition of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, a preferential trading agreement with the uSa In practice, the new labour rights are ineffectual despite the support from the Ilo and foreign trade unions Casualisation has caused previous gains to be rolled back What matters to the regime are the profits for the investors (Andrae 2004) By making alliances with sympathetic organisations in civil and political society outside of Parliament the unions seek to break out of the stif ling grip of the regime

Conclusions: Autonomy, inluence and party politics

So what answers are provided by this volume to the initial questions about autonomy, influence and party politics? Can these things be combined

to enhance union power or are unions increasingly a spent force in party political terms? This volume reports on divergent trajectories In Uganda, they have been subordinated and marginalised as corporate entities in the

‘no-party’ strategy of the Museveni regime In Ghana unions seek to enhance their political influence by deliberately deciding to stay out of party politics, while in Namibia they seem to be pursuing the opposite road – sacrificing,

it is argued, the wider transformative mission and a wider popular base by trying to stay close to those in power Radical critics of the unions elsewhere would agree From this perspective, the failure of Nigeria’s Labour Party, for instance, could be seen as the outcome of the political ambitions of union leaders Yet, the valiant resistance of the zctu to brutal repression, and the leadership that unions have been able to give to popular struggles elsewhere, suggest that they cannot be regarded as a spent force Even where strategies are contested, as in the case of the Polokwane intervention into aNc succes-sion politics, unions continue to demonstrate political clout Where does this come from? The autonomy generated by the need to protect the interests of workers within the wage relations may be an important part of the answer In

most African countries, there are few wage earners in comparison to the mass

of peasants, traders and other petty commodity producers The organisational exposure and competence of the workers, as well as their international links and the centrality of wage labour in the modernisation process, suggest that they will continue to play a leading role in popular politics, including on continents like Africa where they constitute a small minority This volume suggests that union leaders in much of Africa are aware of the special responsibilities that go with this role, especially in a context where there are few other articulate groups that can claim popular democratic roots Successful unionists may also be absorbed in national politics and be given prominent national assignments To what extent does it suggest a working-class influence on politics? The political incorporation and marginalisation of union leaders may be an important theme for further research

In the final chapter of this volume, Sakhela Buhlungu looks at ‘the ways in which the discourse and practice of national liberation shaped (and continue to shape) the different forms of unionism that have emerged on the continent’ The chapter is not intended as a summary or conclusion of the discussion in the rest of the volume What it seeks to do, rather, is to suggest a framework for understanding the reasons why unions choose to relate (or not to relate) to national liberation movements and other political parties Buhlungu argues that the ideology and practice of national liberation has shaped and continues to shape the goals that unions set themselves, the strategies they employ to achieve these goals, and the modes of organisation and mobilisation they adopt

Will unions be able to take a lead in deepening the popular and cratic content of Africa’s party politics? The evidence provided by this volume

demo-is far from unambiguous and opens up space for alternative interpretations One thing is certain – the relations between trade unions and political parties continue to be hotly contested

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York: Palgrave Macmillan

Autonomy or political ailiation? Senegalese trade unions

in the face of economic and political reforms

Alfred Inis Ndiaye

Introduction

since the early 1980 s Senegal has engaged in a dual process of economic and political reform With the support of international inancial institutions the state has been promoting a ‘market economy’, an option made necessary,

in the views of those institutions, by globalisation Simultaneously, the country has initiated a process of democratisation of its political life

Economic liberalism and political pluralism have become the order of the day These changes have brought about an important redeinition of the relationship between trade unions and political parties and facilitated the change of government in March 2000 (Diagne & Dafé 2002; Diop 1992, 2002a, 2002b, 2002c, 2004; Diop & Diouf 1990) Abdoulaye Wade, with the support of a coalition of centrist and left-wing political parties, was elected president of the republic, replacing Abdou Diouf of the Parti Socialiste (pS) (Revue Politique Africaine 2004) In line with the stand of his political party, the Parti Démocratique Sénégalais (pdS), the new president has accelerated the neo-liberal reforms by intensifying the privatisation of the state sector

He has also stepped up the withdrawal of the state from the management of social sectors such as education and health

The reforms constitute a challenge to the workers and to the trade union movement in terms of its organisation, ideology and actions In addition, they have afected the state’s model of managing the unions and

their relations to political parties The new ruling party continues to resist trade union pluralism, a process that has been going on for some time, and in particular, the growing assertion of trade union autonomy vis-à-vis political parties, including the new ruling party The autonomy has been reinforced by alliances among the unions and the creation of new inter-union structures both at local and national levels These developments have enhanced the capacity of trade unions to oppose the economic reforms pursued by the new government (Ndiaye 1997, 2002)

For 30 years the Confédération Nationale des Travailleurs du Sénégal (cNtS), by far the most important national union body, had been ailiated to the previous ruling party, the pS, although there had been a process towards greater autonomy for some time (Tidjani & Ndiaye 2001) When the party lost power in the 2000 elections, the cNtS decided to step up the process and disailiated itself oicially from the party, becoming an independent organisation in line with other Senegalese unions However, the new ruling party (the pdS) was determined to replicate the old model by setting up a group of unions ailiated to it

This chapter explores the impact of economic and political mations on the recomposition of the trade union movement in Senegal and its efects on the relations between trade unions and political parties It seeks

transfor-to cast light on the evolution of those relations over the past 15 years, focusing

on trade union resistance to economic liberalisation, alliances between trade unions and political parties, and the implicit ‘model’ that informed the strategies pursued by the state vis-á-vis the trade unions The analysis draws

on continuous observations of the trade union scene, including interviews with trade unionists and political and economic actors

The chapter is organised in three parts The irst looks at the terms

of the governmental control over trade unions that was exercised during the period of state intervention (1960–80) and the limitations which this imposed on the unions The second part recalls the impact of the policies of

‘structural adjustment’ during the following two decades and the tion of the trade union landscape that these policies generated The last part

explores the recent trends in the relationships between the state and trade unions and between trade unions and political parties in the context of the accelerated neo-liberal reforms of the post-2000 period It includes a discus-sion of alternative trade union policies in relation to those reforms

Nation building and the control of trade unions

As Senegal became independent, the nationalist project of the new elites required the restructuring of the trade union movement and a redeinition of its objectives Political control over the unions was perceived by the govern-ment as a precondition for nation building During the colonial period, the history of the union movement was part and parcel of the development

of French West Africa (Afrique Occidentale Française, aof), a context that legitimated, or even made natural, a close connection between the unions and the movement for national independence Simultaneously, colonial legalisation of trade unions was based on a reformist conception and involved

a mode of state control over unions (Martens 1983) Metropolitan unions also had an interest in exercising control over African unions (Gladstone 1980), but decolonisation strengthened the autonomy of the African trade union movement, enabling the Union Générale des Travailleurs de l’Afrique Noire to play a major role (Zucarelli 1970) With the disintegration of aof, the creation of national structures, and the installation of dominant political parties, the movement entered a diicult process of domestication, resulting

in the emergence of national trade unions (Martens 1982; Meynaud & Salah-Bey 1963; Zucarelli 1970)

Until the beginning of the 1970s, social modernisation was the dominant paradigm in newly independent Senegal and it revolved around

a state-led process of nation building Nation building was at the centre of the nationalist project championed by the new elites (Zucarelli 1970) Trade unions were assigned an important place in the nationalist project The state was expected to promote a broad-based, powerful and dominant body of unions ailiated to the ruling party These unions were supposedly to play

a leading role in the development efort, similar to that expected from the dominant party in the government ield A coordination committee was set

up that provided a new framework for the relations between the ruling party and the leading unions

The irst experiment of cooperation failed Under pressures from the workers, the unions decided to disengage from the ruling party The reaction of the authorities was violent The ruling party disbanded union leadership structures and initiated a new central body, the cNtS, purging all forces hostile to its policy of nation building Trade unions were expected

to adopt the same ideological orientation as the ruling party and the new central union organisation committed itself to ‘participate responsibly’ in the national development efort In return, the ruling party would ensure that the oicially sanctioned unions were given full access to and treated as part

of the institutions of public life The new policy of ‘responsible participation’ was assumed to take care of workers’ legitimate desire to take part in all national decisions that afected their well-being Under the new arrangement the cNtS was considered to be an integral part of the ruling party and it had a speciied share of both Mps and ministerial posts The unions were expected

to reciprocate this by guaranteeing industrial peace Furthermore, ship of cNtS was made compulsory for wage-earning or salaried members of the ruling party and vice versa (Zucarelli 1970)

member-The arrangement facilitated the domination of the unions by the ruling party, which was authorised to intervene whenever it deemed it necessary The party regularly imposed its candidates at trade union conferences In the face of an intensiied economic crisis, trade unions were increasingly paralysed by party control In 1976 the ruling party was made

an ailiate of the Socialist International and took the name Parti Socialiste

In line with the new international arrangements, cNtS shifted from being

an integral part of the party to being an ailiated organisation Although the control by the party was not put in question, the change of status nonetheless stopped the light of some grassroots militants

Following the adoption of a reform programme in the early 1980s, party politics was liberalised to allow for a more competitive political structure and for trade union pluralism According to the new president, Abdou Diouf, the democratisation of the structures of the ruling party was

a prerequisite for opening up to the political opposition and civil society However, in practice, the process was obstructed by those in power Inside the cNtS and the union movement there was a battle for control, with one faction continuing to operate close to the state on the basis of an adjusted form of ‘responsible participation’ It was opposed by another faction that wanted greater autonomy and more internal democracy, and which was anxious to protect the unions as an instrument catering exclusively for the interests of the workers At the cNtS national congress in 1982, the latter, the

‘autonomists’, had the upper hand

Structural adjustment programmes and trade union autonomy

The economic and political reforms strongly inluenced the trade unions, contributing to new relations between unions and politics The structural adjustment programmes (Saps) that took the form of economic adjustment and macroeconomic stabilisation have dominated development thinking and practice in Senegal since the early 1980s The substance of the new paradigm was to replace state intervention with regulation through the market The public and parastatal sectors of the economy were particularly afected as illustrated, for instance, in the new agricultural and industrial policies that

were adopted in 1984 and 1986 respectively (Lachaud 1987)

The new oicial slogan was ‘less state intervention and better state intervention’ The efect of the changes was that the sovereignty of the state was weakened to the advantage of foreign donors and international inance institutions The disengagement of the state involved privatisation and price liberalisation as well as cutting the budgets for social sectors such as education and health The social efects were disastrous, particularly because

of deindustrialisation, the deterioration of agriculture, and a rise in the cost

of living The economic reforms brought unemployment and job insecurity Sharp tensions were generated between the state and the organisations which were supposed to represent the workers The state sought to neutralise the efects by setting up ‘shock absorbing’ structures to manage the employ-ment crisis and to deal with protests from opposition parties, trade unions

and other social forces

President Diouf took measures that contributed to a noticeable decrease of social tensions, succeeding in drawing to the side of the government sectors of civil society that thus far had been hostile Until the beginning of the 1990s, the Saps of the state could be implemented without efective opposition The regime was able to expand its social base and to neutralise hostile social forces The continued ailiation of the largest trade unions to the ruling party obstructed the uniication of a fragmented labour movement in opposition to the state In 1989 the pS regained control over the cNtS, the dominant trade union body Autonomous trade unions were inil-trated by partisans of the regime, and when they could not be neutralised, the state attempted to destroy them with the complicity of employers The ruling party reactivated its ‘political committees’ within enterprises Although the regime was able to consolidate its control over the major actors within the trade union movement, more autonomous ones kept emerging

The Senegalese trade union movement has a long-standing tradition

of pluralism and independence and the autonomist approach was not a new feature (Diallo 2002) During the period of ‘nation building’, individual unions decided at an early point that it was not possible for a trade union

to cooperate with the government while safeguarding its independence However, the state was committed to a mode of control that included heavy repression, and the development of autonomous unions was obstructed With the oicial restoration of trade union pluralism in 1976, conditions improved Unions belonging to the autonomous movement managed to

establish themselves in all sectors of the economy These unions have varied backgrounds The irst generation emerged before structural adjustment