Time to take control
‘BACK to basics’ is the theme of the National Union of Namibian Workers (NUNW) congress which kicks off this morning. What an appropriate theme. Ironically this was one of the subtitles of a research paper titled ‘Trade Unions in Namibia: Defining a new role’ authored by Herbert Jauch of Labour Resource and Research Institute (LaRRI) in 2004.
In the paper, which is now six years old, Jauch writes “In a sense, Namibian unions have to return ‘back to the basics’ by reviving and strengthening their structures and by re-introducing accountability and inner-union democracy”.
This congress is coming at a time when so many things have been said about and written about trade union independence as well as wayward union leaders who use trade unions as a springboard for personal ambition and accountability of leaders to their constituencies.
Some of the industrial unions affiliated to NUNW have to do self-introspection to see if the general secretaries, who are actually employees of the workers, are serving the best interests their employers.
The workers must take control of their unions and kick out general secretaries who have become a law unto themselves and who are not accountable to them.
What the workers must realise is that these are their organisations and that the secretariat at the head office should execute congress resolutions and that they are accountable to the workers.
The industrial unions own the NUNW; therefore the congress must be used to chart a unified roadmap for the affiliates on democratisation of the union movement and accountability on the part of the secretariat and general secretaries.
NUNW leadership should not be cowed by general secretaries of industrial unions through the withholding of affiliation fees. As the umbrella body, NUNW should set the agenda to come up with a uniform policy on many of the problems facing the unions.
The fight between the leadership of some of the affiliates and NUNW leadership about exclusion of some current issues bugging trade unions from the congress agenda is symptomatic of a bankrupt leadership denying workers the chance to debate issues affecting them.
The looting of worker pensions under the watch of their representatives certainly warrants discussion by the affected. The issue of unionists who have been elevated to senior human resource management positions remaining in leadership is an issue that must be debated and resolved by the workers. Union leaders serving on company boards and trade union investments need workers input and must be put on the agenda. The congress should be used to come up with a set of principles on how unions and their leadership should conduct themselves when confronted with issues of this nature.
There are a number of issues reported on by media on workplace-related problems and wastage of resources in the public sector, such as poor service delivery and parastatal CEOs running their enterprises down. Trade unions should be at the forefront of demanding for efficiency in the public sector in particular, but they have been conspicuous in their silence. Namibia Wildlife Resorts is a case in point, where millions of dollars were flushed down the drain because of poor planning, state land being auctioned off in the name of public private partnership and resorts being closed, resulting in job losses.
Another area that needs to be further explored is the NUNW’s inexplicable withdrawal from support for the Basic Income Grant (BIG) initiative, which they had initially helped get off the ground.
What happened to NUNW’s standing committee on economics that was revived in 2001? The committee should be used as the union think-tank where policy issues are thrashed out and alternatives provided.
True trade unionists and worker representatives ought to campaign against malpractices, be they in private or public sector, but they have been quiet. Why? Is it because they don’t have the interests of workers at heart and are using their positions in the unions as a stepping stone to higher offices?
Let the workers go ‘Back to Basics’ and reclaim their unions and set the agenda on issues that affect their lives. The congress is indeed the right platform where workers can take control of their organisations. The time is now!