Go back to basics, unions urged

TRADE unions in Namibia need to rethink their role and future, labour movement analyst Herbert Jauch argues in a new publication on trade unions that was launched in Windhoek yesterday.

Speaking at the launch of a booklet of the Labour Resource and Research Institute (LaRRI), of which he is the Director, Jauch said that Namibia’s trade unions were finding themselves in a dilemma and would have to re-evaluate where they were heading and how they intended to get there. Jauch was giving a brief overview of the booklet, ‘Trade Unions in Namibia – Defining a New Role?’.He noted that Namibia had experienced a dramatic shift in labour patterns in recent years – away from the primary sector and the sort of blue collar work in which the trade union movement had been rooted in the past, and more towards service sector work.This decline of traditional blue collar work had had a major effect on the traditional membership base of the country’s unions, he explained.He added that since Independence Namibia’s trade unions had also been weak in influencing policy decisively and would have to organise themselves better if they wanted to influence policies that affected them and their members.Since Independence, the country’s unions had suffered from a sort of ideological confusion of nationalism mixed with neo-liberalism, while Government’s one-time claims of harbouring socialist ideals had been accompanied by conservative economic policies such as export processing zones and structuring the economy around a reliance on foreign investments, he commented.In such a setting, unions would have to reconsider their goals and ways of trying to reach them, he argued.Basic Education, Sport and Culture Minister John Mutorwa echoed a statement made by Jauch in the booklet:”Namibian unions face a host of challenges today.They will have to improve their recruitment strategies to organise workers in the non-traditional sectors (such as the small business sector) and render effective services to their members.Unions also need to ensure functioning structures and accountability to their membership within their own organisation.”Beyond their workplace, unions need to develop effective strategies to influence broader socio-economic policies in favour of workers and the poor in general.This will require the development of labour’s own policy proposals and the forging of strategic alliances with other organisations representing the interests of Namibia’s disadvantaged majority.”These paragraphs clearly summarised what trade unions’ role should be, Mutorwa said.He added that their first function had to be the recruitment of members.But thereafter, union leaderships had to seriously look at the need to keep in touch with their membership as there was a tendency for a gap to open between union leadership and their members and for the leaders to forget what their mandate was supposed to… Elsewhere in the booklet, Jauch summarised his analysis of the choices facing Namibia’s unions:”Namibia’s trade unions face two possible scenarios today.Provided they can meet the challenges outlined and redefine their role as ‘struggle organisations’ with a specific class base and a strategic agenda, they are likely to play a central role in the fight for socio-economic justice.Failure to seize this opportunity was likely to result in Namibian trade unions gradually losing their mass base while union leaders are being absorbed with bargaining issues, union investments, party-political careers and tripartite participation, without addressing (and challenging) the fundamental socio-economic structures that uphold the continued skewed distribution of wealth and income.”Jauch was giving a brief overview of the booklet, ‘Trade Unions in Namibia – Defining a New Role?’.He noted that Namibia had experienced a dramatic shift in labour patterns in recent years – away from the primary sector and the sort of blue collar work in which the trade union movement had been rooted in the past, and more towards service sector work.This decline of traditional blue collar work had had a major effect on the traditional membership base of the country’s unions, he explained.He added that since Independence Namibia’s trade unions had also been weak in influencing policy decisively and would have to organise themselves better if they wanted to influence policies that affected them and their members.Since Independence, the country’s unions had suffered from a sort of ideological confusion of nationalism mixed with neo-liberalism, while Government’s one-time claims of harbouring socialist ideals had been accompanied by conservative economic policies such as export processing zones and structuring the economy around a reliance on foreign investments, he commented.In such a setting, unions would have to reconsider their goals and ways of trying to reach them, he argued.Basic Education, Sport and Culture Minister John Mutorwa echoed a statement made by Jauch in the booklet:”Namibian unions face a host of challenges today.They will have to improve their recruitment strategies to organise workers in the non-traditional sectors (such as the small business sector) and render effective services to their members.Unions also need to ensure functioning structures and accountability to their membership within their own organisation.”Beyond their workplace, unions need to develop effective strategies to influence broader socio-economic policies in favour of workers and the poor in general.This will require the development of labour’s own policy proposals and the forging of strategic alliances with other organisations representing the interests of Namibia’s disadvantaged majority.”These paragraphs clearly summarised what trade unions’ role should be, Mutorwa said.He added that their first function had to be the recruitment of members.But thereafter, union leaderships had to seriously look at the need to keep in touch with their membership as there was a tendency for a gap to open between union leadership and their members and for the leaders to forget what their mandate was supposed to… Elsewhere in the booklet, Jauch summarised his analysis of the choices facing Namibia’s unions:”Namibia’s trade unions face two possible scenarios today.Provided they can meet the challenges outlined and redefine their role as ‘struggle organisations’ with a specific class base and a strategic agenda, they are likely to play a central role in the fight for socio-economic justice.Failure to seize this opportunity was likely to result in Namibian trade unions gradually losing their mass base while union leaders are being absorbed with bargaining issues, union investments, party-political careers and tripartite participation, without addressing (and challenging) the fundamental socio-economic structures that uphold the continued skewed distribution of wealth and income.”