Even though government has a hand in formation of PUSETU and its intention to weaken the labour movement COTU’s slumber is however largely to blame for the rising frustration amongst workers
By Paul Mwaura and David Wanjala
Governments across the world are conservative by nature, preferring to ride and thrive on the ignorance of the masses as they implement policies that advance skewed political agenda while rewarding political financiers, elites and cronies.
All over, governments are compelled to accept to the demands of the people by virtue of the people’s organizing powers and focus. Out of this, some concession is squeezed from the rulers’ grip on power in order for the government and the people to coexist.
An action by the Kenyan government to assist, coordinate and push for a new workers union, Public Service Trade Union of Kenya (PUSETU), looked from this dimension, leaves a lot of unanswered questions. What is the real motivation behind it?
It should be recalled that the Union of Kenyan Civil Servants (UKCS), banned in 1980, was reregistered 21 years later and in 2002. The UKCS had the right to negotiate the terms and conditions of civil service employment, and it submitted a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) to the Government during the year.
The registration could be construed as part of the wider efforts by the increasingly unpopular President Moi regime to woo civil servants in the wake of an increasingly powerful Opposition ahead of the December 2002 General Election.
In the light of the above realities, PUSETU, indeed launched by the government last Month could mark the beginning of Government interference with trade unions. The bickering, already gaining momentum, between the new union and the Central Organization of Trade Unions, COTU (K) asserts these fears.
Like KANU, the Jubilee Government seems to have embarked on a path to divide and rule the trade unions. The government is faced with ballooning huge wage bill that threaten its ability to sustain and implement its electoral promises. In the recent past the Deputy President has hinted that the government will have no option but to embark on a massive retrenchment of civil servants in order to fulfill its promises.
When President Moi was faced by the challenge of containing the teachers’ worst ever strike in 1997 by the all powerful Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) he allowed for a quick registration of the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET). Apparently KNUT had made President Moi’s work too difficult at a time when he faced a lot of financial cuts from the Briton woods institutions..
The government’s hand in the formation of PUSETU could also be the beginning of the fall of COTU especially with the enlisting in the new outfit of some of COTU’s founder affiliates like Kenya Union of Domestic Hotels, Educational Institutions and Hospitals and Allied Workers (KUDHEIHA). It is clear that the new union is keen on encroaching on COTU’s territory.
We expect superiority fights particularly in regards to representation in the workers’ bodies and in international forums.
The government’s action is reminiscent of the former Britain Prime Minister, Margret Thatcher’s policies during her tenure between 1979 and 1990. She was an advocate of privatizing state-owned industries and utilities, reforming trade unions, lowering taxes and reducing social expenditure across the board. Thatcher succeeded in bringing onto their knees trade unions particularly the powerful coal miners unions.
Its all clear that the Jubilee government is hell-bent on preempting massive industrial actions.
Registration of PUSETU is ironical. The government, on the one hand is claiming to empower public service workers by assisting them to register own union and on the other, it has a clear intention of retrenching the same workers as a strategy to manage the public wage bill.
PUSETU arrives on the seen at a time when the Francis Atwoli led COTU has increasingly cut itself a niche in the political brokerage arena.. It is in public domain that the COTU leadership has leveraged the office to advance narrow, personal and mostly, political agenda at the expense of its languishing membership.
The current working conditions of the unionized workers is not something to write home about. The rising cost of living is not commensurate with the wage increase, not to mention the poor working conditions. This comes at a time when the majority in the jua kali sector and hundreds employed as casual labourers remain non-represented.
COTU s represented a number of workers’ bodies, including Salaries and Remuneration Commission, National Labour Board, National Social Security Fund (NSSF), National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF). In the recent years nepotism in employment of top and middle level management in the NSSF and NHIF and other public institutions has been raised touching not only on the abilities of COTU representatives in these boards, but indeed the mandate of COTU.
The formation of PUSETU could also be viewed as coming from frustration from centralization of power by COTU making, which has left non-affiliates isolated or non-represented. The general feeling has been that the COTU lacks internal democracy and has for a long time now been used by most of its leaders to cut deals with the political elite as well as a pedestal to political power. Increasingly and especially under the current leadership, it has been difficult to have a clear line between the individual ambitions and workers’ stand on key economic, social-cultural and political issues. COTU, just like Kenya’s political parties, lacks a clear ideological leaning that can be sustainable beyond the current myopic outlook of a worker’s welfare and representation in the 21st Century.
A present day worker is faced with multiple modern challenges occasioned by new technological advancement. A trade union has a great role to play now than ever. A trade union should be way ahead of government on prescribing solutions to the modern challenges facing its members.
More efforts need also to be put in realigning trade unions to face the new ongoing regional integration particularly the Eastern African Cooperation. The voice of trade unions would be critical during the integration process.
Trade unions have better roles to play in Kenya than serving as government mouthpieces. Sideshows emanating from the formation of PUSETU aside, there is need for a serious soul-searching and redefinition of the role of trade unions in this age and era.
