African Unification Front
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List of Trades Unions in the African Union
AUF PROGRAM FOR AFRICAN LABOUR.
The future growth of African labour must take into account the unity of African workers and their mission in building of Africa as a workers commonwealth. The AUF appeals for the unification of African workers to address Africa interests and the threat of division of workers along neocolonial lines.
The AUF aims at uniting all the workers in Africa for the purpose of arranging all the communal, economic, and cultural affairs of the workers for rebuilding of dignified labour in Africa. The central means of progress in labour relations will be a many-sided policy aimed at activating all economic factors. This allows for the recognition of private investment as well as collective and public investment. It allows for autonomous, private, and public entreprises to exist in a wholesome balance that will benefit the cultural and social life of Africans.
Africa does not now have a shortage of national lands, and under a Governmnet of Unity, will have public funds for the purpose of building an independent labor economy and to compete in the international labour market.
Government policy in a united Africa must make it possible for African labour to keep its unions open to new workers, and has to limit the advantages of the skilled workers over the unskilled. Trade union organizations are a correlative to the capitalist economy, in the same sense that the African Unification Front is a coalition necessitated by the logic of struggle against the vagaries of residual colonialism and imperialism.
African labour has to guard against separatist tendencies among workers. Also it must strive to create the conditions necessary to create skill for the running of African industry in the future.
Self-employed farmers make up the most crucial segment of the organized workers movements and tendencies in Africa. A fund has to be set up to help in the settlement of social dislocation caused by competition for land between ranchers and agriculturalists. The social forms of such settlements must be left to the farmers themselves. Past intervention by state authorities tends to overwhelm local concers and has led to massive expulsions of farmers and is one of the causes of civil wars.
A government of unity must deal with priorities in allocation of land, budgeting, and the development of various branches of farming. It must protect the social structure of the settlements, especially during periods of economic difficulty, mediate in disputes between farming communities, and fund agricultural training.
AFRICAN LABOUR EXCHANGE: ENDING DISCRIMINATION
The AUF aims to establish the African Labour Exchange Commission, for the purpose of fair and orderly distributionof labour and employement. Labour exchanges would be set up in all of the major cities in Africa.
The labour exchanges would provide certification services for workers, as well as job placement and skills upgrading services for unskilled workers. In order for large employers to hire a worker they would simply apply to the Labour Exchange, providing a description of skills required. The Labour Exchange would then match the requirements with available job applicants that it has certified are qualified for the job. The new worker would then turn up for work and the employer would have to hire the person.
This system would eliminate the need for employers to hire based on subjective criteria. In order to satisfy employers needs adequately, the labour exchanges would be managed with substantial input from employers, and they would draw up the method and protocols for certification of workers. But they would never be allowed to chose their own employees. Procedures of appeal would be put in place if the employee or the employer were disatisfied with each other during the probationery period of 3 months. A Labour Tribunal or Commission would over see the dispute to its resolution and would make legally binding recommendations to the parties.
All instruments of labour organisation such as Labour Councils, Labour Communes, Trades Unions, religious organisations, families, etc must be recognized and their concerns addressed in an orderly and consistently all across Africa.
WAGES
The Extended Family Wage System must take precedence over professional scales, in those sectors of production in which familial ties are vital to the capacity of the worker. Wages under the EFWS will depend on whether the worker is has dependants.
Workers must be provided access to participate in the cultural life of Africa, and so the must have easy access to life-long education, publications, theatre, sports, recreation, leisure, libraries, etc,.
NOTES ON LABOUR IN THE AFRICAN UNION
Hassan Sunmonu, Secretary General of the Accra-based Organisation of African Trade Union Unity (OATTU) believes African workers stand to gain from a united Africa. "African workers must be empowered to move from poverty to wealth and this can be achieved through a united Africa," Sunmonu told PANA in Tripoli, after OATUU's conference ahead of OAU's extra-ordinary Summit to esablish the African Union, in March 2001.
Mr. Sunmonu said African workers had suffered from defective policies and foreign exploitation. "The average worker is today worse off than 20 years ago, when the first generation of Structural Adjustment Programmes were introduced," Sunmonu said, adding that the programmes had entailed job losses and hardship to the working class, while benefiting the so-called consultants.
The OATUU chief said the situation had been compounded by job insecurity. But he said the 1990 African Charter on Popular Participation, anchored on five pillars, would address the anomaly...These include insistence on democracy, social and economic empowerment, good governance and respect for human rights and trade union laws.
Sunmonu said his Organisation, with 73 affiliates in 50 countries, was stepping up efforts to sensitise, educate and mobilise African workers on their rights, with the support of the informal sector.
He criticised the Poverty Alleviation Programmes, which African countries are launching with the support of multi- national financial institutions like the IMF and the World Bank.
"What we need is wealth creation and not poverty alleviation, which is becoming an industry by itself," Sunmonu argued. He explained that "you cannot also create wealth without creating well-remunerated jobs."
The OATUU chief expressed the hope that, when operational, the African Union Constitutive Act and the African Economic Community based on the 1991 Abuja Treaty would make life better for the African worker.
OATTU was set up in September 1973 to coordinate the activities of African national trade unions as part of efforts toward regional integration.
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