16 November, 2009
As part of a SASK of Finland sponsored Sub-Sahara Africa project on Contract and Agency Labour (CAL), the ICEM held a regional meeting on precarious work 2-3 November in Togo for trade unionists from nine different African countries attended. The main aim of the conference was to assess and discuss how the ICEM’s campaign has had an impact on solving some of the problems faced by millions of non-regular workers in the region.
The region is no exception to the rule: CAL workers face many difficulties. Many of them are women and young workers. Typically, agency, temporary, and outsourced workers lose out in various areas, including salary levels, health and safety protections, as well as not receiving ordinary job benefits, vocational training, and job protection, and trade union rights.
Especially in mining, with examples cited from Guinea, Namibia, Senegal, Sierra Leon, South Africa, and Togo, CAL problems appear to be chronic and shocking. But unionists also talked about CAL difficulties in other ICEM industrial sectors, including oil and gas, cement, and chemicals. There was a clear link for participants between the increased CAL problems and escalating investment on the continent by Chinese companies.
The meeting also heard about a variety of success stories that have countered the worst abuses of precarious work. For example, several unions had organised previously unorganised CAL workers. Examples given – Guinea, Mauritius, Senegal, and Sierra Leone – were inspiring, with citations noted that workers of a few hundred at a time had been organised into trade unions.
Sutids from Senegal is just one union that has managed to change hundreds of workers’ individual contracts into one giving permanent employment. This specific campaign topic was adopted by the union as part of the “ICEM national seminar project plan.”
In Nigeria, ICEM oil and gas affiliates, NUPENG and PENGASSAN, report they now represent up to 60% of all CAL workers, admitting, however, that basic work conditions for these workers are still much lower than those of directly and permanently employed workers.
Actions by the ICEM Sub-Saharan Africa affiliates have not been limited to organising and collective bargaining. Several unions in Africa have also engaged their governments, seeking law changes. In South Africa, where the issue is a top political priority (see Ban on Labour Brokers, click here), labour brokers were said to receive 50-to-60% of the fees they charge companies for their own “service fees,” thus taking much directly from the pockets of agency workers themselves.
Reportedly, for a number of labour brokers, having an office means having a laptop and an automobile. In Namibia, the law already bans labour brokers and, in Sierra Leone, the government agreed to review the country’s labour laws after a campaign by the United Mineworkers’ Union (UMU). That review looked specifically at ending CAL abuses there, another result of a national plan adopted at an ICEM-CAL seminar.
In Guinea, the government decided to start a process to review all mining contracts in the country after the ICEM-CAL seminar there last spring. Guinea’s Labour Minister has also started the process of preventing sham subcontracting companies from operating in the country, which in some cases are owned by managers of primary employers, including human resources managers. A recent victory (see Guinea Forces Expulsion of Russian Mine Boss, click here) came despite the country being at high risk due to the current political situation.
Regretfully, good laws are often not respected, with Nigeria and Senegal serving as examples. This has led the ICEM CAL Campaign to emphasize – quite successfully in Mozambique – to trade unions that they engage governments to embark on labour inspections. Cooperation between the unions and the labour inspectorate was a main topic at the national CAL seminar in Mozambique.
Unions are also examining their internal rules and structures, in efforts to attract more precarious workers into their ranks. In Mauritius, for example, Sindicatravayer offers membership to CAL workers for a symbolic 1 rupee (instead of 50). The union extended existing collective agreements to also cover contract and agency workers. The union furthermore won, in certain sectors, an extra payment of one day’s salary per month for temporary workers. That money goes into a fund, making sure that also CAL workers at the end of their contract get a dismissal fee. Sutids from Senegal helps precarious workers with easier access to medical care and legal assistance.
There has been much progress in ICEM’s Sub-Sahara Africa Region, but the many problems still outweigh these important steps forward. Sadly, the progress itself is also precarious in some cases.
Workers in Mauritius are facing a different, new “precarious” problem after the country’s government, in February 2009, decided to change the labour law, turning virtually every worker into a “contractual.” This new law removes obligations to pay dismissal fees. At the same time, it also makes it possible to dismiss any worker at any time without good reason.
Many participants in the ICEM-SASK seminar in Togo reported on the fact that the more successful CAL activities in their respective countries took off after, and as a result of, ICEM project seminars in the different countries.
ICEM Project Coordinator, Joseph Toe
The person most responsible for that has been ICEM’s project coordinator, Joseph Toe. He, while organising the CAL seminars for the ICEM affiliates, almost invariably manages to get the respective country’s Minister of Labour, or a high-ranking representative from that office, at CAL conferences.
This was also the case at the most recent 2-3 November regional seminar, which was opened by Togo’s Labour Minister, Mr. Broohm Octave Nicoue. The fact that Toe has succeeded in such organizing has improved access on the political level, and coupled with this high-level political participation, is the reason behind a number of the successes in the region.