Uganda’s labour unions a threat to workers’ rights

If there’s any constituency that is less prioritised in Uganda, it is the workers. Yet workers have five members of parliament thanks to affirmative action. What’s disappointing, though, is the manner in which the workers’ MPs are elected. We have two labour centres – National Organisation of Trade Unions (NOTU) and Central Organisation of Free Trade Unions (COFTU) from where all the five MPs are elected. Another centre, Central Organisation of Labour Unions (COLU), died before it captured the ground. So how representative are the trade unions to be the channel through which workers’ MPs are elected? The emergency of the diverse labour centres is not so much because of their need to serve workers better. Rather, it is primarily to further their founders’ interests or because of the undemocratic tendencies of the mother centre, NOTU.

We need to recall that COFTU was formed soon after the elections in NOTU in which Sam Lyomoki and Christopher Kahirita emerged losers. Irene Kaboole also formed COLU (which died in its infancy and I don’t know whether it will be resuscitated) after Kaboole was shown the exit as vice chairperson. I will not delve into the freeness and fairness of the elections in this article; it will be a subject for another article. Rather, I strongly argue that the formation of the centres has been and continues to be a reaction to elections gone bad for some people.

At the time of COLU’s formation, Irene Kaboole belonged to the Uganda Government and Allied Workers’ Union (UGAWU), but it emerged that she was directly or indirectly booted from UGAWU as the recognised UGAWU remained affiliated to NOTU. Today, one of the Workers’ MPs Mr Arinaitwe Rwakajara is from UGAWU. Workers’ MPs have not focused on non-unionised workers who incidentally are the majority. While the MPs are elected by trade unions, they necessarily represent all the workers –unionised and non-unionised. It’s prudent that the formula of electing workers’ MPs be revised if they are to be relevant to the Uganda’s labour rights movement. As of now, the workers’ MPs naively or deliberately remain focused on their voters – the trade unionists – and forget that their constituency covers all workers.

Most likely, workers’ MPs confuse their electorate with their constituency or else they unpatriotically take their electorate to be more important than their constituency. Consequently, workers’ rights remain the most flagrantly abused. What makes matters worse also is the grim reality that Uganda’s trade unions have been turned into a de facto branch of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) Party. I have deeply studied Uganda’s trade unions and I confidently assert that they are a threat to workers’ rights. I wonder how a trade union centre of NOTU’s calibre can succumb to the temptation of getting money from the president to build its home or purchase one. Is it not clear that he who pays the piper calls the tune? How can unions elect NRM cadres as their leaders and expect them to prioritise workers and not their party? Recently the president said his job is to propose and the MPs’ job (including workers’ MPs) is to approve. Thus, all the MPs have to do is rubberstamp Museveni’s positions.

How can workers celebrate that their MP Charles Bakabulindi is a minister yet they know that as a minister he is bound by collective responsibility to endorse the Government position even if it’s antithetical to workers’ interests? How do they celebrate the indirect gagging of a leader who primarily is supposed to be their mouthpiece? MPs are supposed to be independent of the president but ministers are necessarily the president’s servants and he is their master. It’s clear that President Museveni has for so long frustrated the workers in their quest for social justice and he uses the likes of Charles Bakabulindi to cow the workers into submission. This is similar to the indirect rule method that the British used in their colonies and in Uganda which was a protectorate. None of the workers’ MP has been forthright in showing solidarity with the teachers as they demand that their salaries be revised upward. On the contrary, it is only Democratic Party’s Joseph Sewungu who stood firmly in support of teachers. So, what is the role of workers’ MPs? Why should UNATU stand alone when it is an affiliate of the leading and oldest labour centre NOTU? Although NOTU threatened to strike over teachers’ pay, I am yet to see whether they will follow through.

Bribery, co-option, intimidation and manipulation – tools that the NRM machinery has used for the past 26 years have not spared the trade unions. As we move to celebrate 26 years of the National Resistance Movement rule, my question is: What gains do Ugandan workers have to celebrate? While the trade union leaders – who evidently represent a tiny minority of workers – are driven in vehicles, attend national, regional and international seminars and conferences with handsome per diems, the rank and file unionised workers and all non-unionised workers are disillusioned, disappointed and see only betrayal in the trade union leaders and workers’ MPs.

On 6 April 2008, I was hosted on UBC TV together with Mr Bakabulindi to talk about job creation and respect for workers’ rights as a prerequisite for economic growth. Surprisingly, I found myself speaking as a workers’ MP while Baka’s job was to defend the government. His position to me was understandable – he was defending his cake and in my view, workers should have recalled him as soon as he was appointed minister. Right now workers’ MPs benefit from workers but workers scarcely benefit from the MPs. It would be understandable if the Directorate of Labour was elevated to a full-fledged ministry to be headed by a workers’ representative. Presently, I must say, workers scarcely benefit from a minister who happens to be a workers’ MP. It’s high time we subjected our trade unions and workers’ MPs to a thorough, critical assessment. Watch this space for more debate on labour issues.

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* Vincent Nuwagaba is a human rights defender with keen interest in socio-economic rights
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