A social partnership for Africa: TUC submission to the Commission for Africa

TUC submission to the Commission for Africa

The TUC is very concerned that the Commission for Africa has ignored the role of trade unions in solving the continent’s problems, and has paid too little attention to the role that social partnership, social dialogue and decent work can play. Trade unions have shown, in many countries around the world but in particular in Africa that they can play a major part in creating and maintaining effective states based on good governance and popular participation. Unions also have a vital role to play in promoting economic progress and decent work, and thus in poverty reduction and the promotion of decent standards of wealth distribution, equality, health and education.

The TUC believes that the Commission for Africa needs to promote and assist the development of strong, free and independent trade unions in Africa, able to take up their proper role in social partnership with government and employers. Without such trade unions, civil society will never function properly in Africa, and the role of the African peoples will remain that of the passive observer or object of social progress.

Trade unions in Africa could play an important part in the development of effective states, good governance, popular participation, reduced corruption and increased transparency as well as generally building unity (unions tend to be multi-racial and interested in gender and other equalities issues) and promoting peaceful resolution of disputes economically, politically and in the community.

Strong, free and independent trade union movements are one of the cornerstones of democratic states. In advocating the core labour standards [1] of the International Labour Organisation, unions promote an approach based on practical human rights, and, where the core labour standards are implemented, societies are more equal, more open and tolerant and more effective at managing change peacefully.

Unions play a key role in civil society and ensure that working people and others have the opportunity to develop practical experience in democracy, problem solving, negotiation and other aspects of participation in public life. This is true around the world, but no less true of Africa where trade unions play major roles in civil society in countries as diverse as Algeria, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa and Tunisia.

In part, this is demonstrated by the reaction of dictatorships to trade unions, which is to try either to destroy them or take them over. Trade unions often act as the repository of democratic ideals, as shown in Nigeria in the past and currently in Zimbabwe (as well as providing international networks of support and solidarity). In many countries emerging from dictatorship, the trade union movement has played a key role in the transition to democracy, for example in South Africa, where trade union confederations like COSATU were central to the overthrow of apartheid and have played a major role in the transition process.

Trade unions are also an important part of combating corruption because of the function they can perform as examples of open and democratic activity, and because of the challenge function which they present to government and business elites. The collective nature of trade unions gives them a tendency towards openness and honesty.

The TUC therefore calls on the Commission for Africa to:

• promote the growth of strong, free and independent trade unions and oppose repression and restriction of trade union activities;

• advocate adoption of the ILO’s core labour standards by Africa’s governments, and adherence to the rule of law, including adequately resourced and supported labour inspectorates; and

• promote the involvement and consultation of trade unions in the PRSP process as part of a general approach to promoting social dialogue in economic and employment-related matters.

Two of the key problems facing Africa which the Commission rightly addresses are the HIV/AIDS pandemic and the continent-wide skills shortage. However, the Commission fails to address the workplace aspects of those twin crises. In addition, its proposals on social protection lack a social partnership element.

HIV/AIDS does not just threaten the health of Africa, it is in many countries the main cause of economic dislocation, and is a major issue for workplaces across Southern Africa in particular. Thousands of workers are being victimised at the workplace because they are HIV positive. Unfair dismissals, mandatory pre-employment tests, harassment, lack of confidentiality and denial of promotion or vocational training are among the abuses suffered world-wide by HIV positive workers.

Unions are uniquely placed to fight the pandemic as the workplace could be a major 'entry point' for information, prevention and rights campaigns. Among the measures proposed by unions are prevention and protective clauses in collective agreement and partnership with employers. Unions demand 'zero tolerance' for discrimination at the workplace and in society. The ICFTU’s African Regional Organisation has launched a multifaceted programme of action [2] and is mobilising unions all over the continent. The programme covers workplace action as well as the need for greater efforts on prevention, treatment and support for sufferers and their families.

In terms of education and skills, the TUC strongly supports the objective of increasing girls’ access to free education. Among other things, this will require the prohibition of child labour and effective economic policies which make that possible. In addition, the TUC believes that unions and employers should, in the spirit of social partnership, be given a key role in determining and implementing education and training strategies at national level, as they have in developed countries. The developed world needs to stop poaching professionals at the current rate [3] and needs to contribute its share to their training (for example by not charging full cost fees) and wages for professionals and skilled workers, especially in the public sector, need to rise to provide an incentive for skill acquisition and a disincentive to mass emigration.

Finally, in terms of social protection, the role of trade unions needs to be acknowledged and promoted. Unions need to be able to take part in the oversight of social protection packages at national level, and need to be able to bring workers in the informal economy into their ambit, as unions in countries like Ghana and Zimbabwe have done successfully.

The TUC urges the Commission for Africa to:

• adopt a workplace dimension to the fight against HIV/AIDS, in consultation with unions and employers;

• ensure greater access to HIV/AIDS treatments through greater flexibility in the application of agreements on TRIPS, especially with reference to the Waver to Article 31(f) and (h) of the Agreement negotiated in August 2003;

• reduce the poaching of professionals; build capacity within developing country teaching unions so that they can better support their members and act as partners able to increase professional development

• take measures to prevent child labour, promote girls’ education and enhance non-fee paying secondary education for all;

• pay sufficient wages to professionals and public sector workers;

• support efforts to regularise the employment of workers in the informal sector including trade union efforts to involve informal sector workers; and

• ensure that unions and employers are engaged in the planning, oversight and implementation of social security and social protection strategies.

The TUC believes that, in the context of the report of the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalisation, the social partners need to be given far more prominence in the search for economic solutions. In particular, this applies to consultation and social dialogue over employment policies aimed at increasing the number of decent jobs. We would draw the attention of the Commission to the excellent joint submission [4] to the African Union’s Summit of Heads of State and Governments on Employment and Poverty Alleviation in July 2004 which contains an excellent prescription for economic priorities and the involvement of unions and employers.

But, as the Commission makes clear, it is vital that the rest of the world’s approach to Africa’s economic problems are driven by the need for fair trade, more and better aid, and dropping the debt. The TUC therefore urges the Commission to:

• encourage all developed countries to undertake to increase overseas development aid to 0.7% of their Gross National Income by a specified date, as Britain has done;

• encourage governments to target money at releasing the capacity of trade unions,given their ability to reduce poverty and enhance development (as outlined in the 2004 DFID paper on labour standards and poverty reduction [5] );

• reject making aid conditional on polices of privatisation, liberalisation and deregulation should stop, and promoting instead requirements of adherence to international standards such as the ILO’s core conventions;

• promote the International Financing Facility and measures such as the Lula-Chirac proposals;

• press for trade to be made fair before it is made free, so that tariffs preventing exports by African country should be addressed before African countries are required to lower their trade barriers to developed countries. Promoting south-south trade should have a higher priority;

• recommend more technical assistance for African countries to enable them to use existing trade concessions (for instance GSP), eg UNCTAD capacity building programmes;

• urge developed countries to remove export subsidies, domestic support and tariff and non- tariff barriers on agricultural commodities; and

• recommend that debt relief under the HIPC should be expanded and expedited so that more countries with unsustainable debt burdens could free up resources for achievement of Millennium Development Goals.

[1] No forced or child labour, no discrimination at work, and the freedom to join unions and bargain collectively.

[2] See www.icftu.org/displaydocument.asp?DocType=Background&Index=991211419&Language=EN

[3] See the groundbreaking agreement negotiated by Commonwealth teacher unions (http://www.nut.org.uk/story.php?id=3169)

[4] 'Economic growth is a necessary but insufficient condition for poverty reduction and employment creation. There is need for a rethinking the role of the state in the economy. Governments should promote employment-intensive and pro-poor growth policies, and a focus on high productive employment sectors and use employment intensive technologies. In effect African governments should adopt appropriate country-driven human centred macroeconomic and social policies. Economic growth and wealth creation are prerequisites to alleviation of poverty. Growth with redistribution, productivity enhancement and wealth creation provide the starting points for poverty reduction.'

'Social dialogue is a sine qua non for sustainable national development, conflict prevention and resolution, and social peace. Working towards national socio-economic consensus on development strategies is equally important. In the search for new sources of growth and employment creation, emphasis should also be placed on the institutionalisation of social dialogue and the strengthening of the social partners.'

Statement of African social partners to African Union on employment and poverty alleviation, Addis Abbaba, 4 July 2004, http://www.ituc-csi.org/?displaydocument.asp?Index=991220306&Language=EN

[5] Labour standards and poverty reduction, DfID, June 2004, www.dfid.gov.uk/pubs/files/labourstandardsJune04.pdf