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19 August, 2009
Tanzanian Union of Industrial and Commercial Workers (TUICO) provides a sterling example of how unions in Africa can take on the task of organising precarious workers. Judith Kajula, representing TUICO at the recent gender strategy meeting in South Africa, spoke to UMOJA about TUICO's work with precarious workers.
commercial, financial and services and consultancy. As a union we are very concerned with the increasing number of precarious jobs in the formal and informal sector.
I work in the women and youth department, we organise women in all sectors and even in the informal sector. In the formal sector it is easier to organise because as trade unions, we have structured the way we go about our work based on formal employment. But times are changing and there are more and more workers in the informal sector and they are not so easy to organise because there is no structure, no employer to bargain with, yet they are still workers that are vulnerable and a large number of them are women. They are depending on themselves because in precarious work each person is fighting for her own well being. With the money she gets she must meet her needs for food, clothing and whatever else it is that she wants. The time for women to be dependent on men to bring home food for the table is over. Now men and women are dependent on each other, if one does not work it is difficult to make ends meet. Women also want to have greater economic independence, they want to be free from having to ask a man for things.
There are limited employment opportunities for women in the formal sector. Women are found in the EPZs, here employers have a profile of workers that they will employ. they want young women to work, may be because they are energetic so they can produce more, or may be because they wont know their rights.
Workers in the EPZs are difficult to organise. Employers don't want to allow the trade union to organise workers. TUICO is trying to find ways to enter the EPZs, but the employers are resisting this. We still work hard to organise these workers, we have members from these factories but they don't have branches in the workplace. Dues are paid outside the factory and management does not know which workers are union members. Workers are victimised for being union members, they are afraid that once management knows that they are union members they will be sacked.
We decided to do research because we needed to know more about workers in the EPZ, but we were refused entry to talk to workers. So together with the national centre, we spoke top women outside the gates so that we could know their situation at the EPZ. This information assists the union to seek ways to work in the EPZs, so that workers can know their rights and we can make demands for them and improve conditions. Workers know that they can come to the union to learn more and if they are in trouble. We will help them, like if they are sacked, even if they are not union members because we understand that they are afraid to join the union for fear of victimisation.
Employers in the EPZs don't want to follow the labour laws, when the law says a person should work 8 hours, these workers can work for longer than 12 hours.
If a young woman in the EPZ becomes pregnant that is the end of her job. There is no maternity leave, if she wants her job back she must go to ask for it and if she is lucky then she might be employed again. if she tries to go back immediately so that her job is still there then that means no breastfeeding, to the detriment of the child, because once you are in the factory that's the end of it.
For those that don't get their jobs back, they move to informal work, often this is selling things in the street like bananas in the street. For workers in the informal sector no one really bothers about them. But at TUICO we are recruiting these workers and trying to organise them in a way that meets their needs.
The workers in the market place have been easier to work with. these informal workers were already in societies, but the societies only helps them to access credit for their goods and not much else. TUICO organised these workers, they pay TS600 which is equivalent to half a dollar. With this TUICO was able to improve their working conditions, for example they used to sit in the sun but now TUICO has organised shelters for them to work under.
We have also helped informal workers by giving them training on occupational health and safety and on how to manage their business. The ILO has books on how to manage a small business in the informal sector and TUICO took these books and used them to train people. No one gave TUICO money to do this, it was our own initiative, once these workers became members it was our duty to find appropriate ways to educate them. So far we are working in two markets. Kareako Market which s the biggest in Dar Es Salaam and Karume Market where there are many women working with cloth doing things like tie and dye and batik. we organise both men and women, however there are far more women workers in the informal sector than in formal employment.
This work has been very successful as the informal workers have gained education and have greater solidarity. Now the city council is trying to manage the hawkers by locating them in markets. Hawkers are probably the most difficult to organise as they are not located in one place and are always moving. TUICO will continue to do work with and we have started to recruit and organise in new markets.