Organisation of African Trade Union Unity

Kwame Nkrumah, Head of the AAPC in 1958, and prominent Pan-Africanist[2].

The first Pan-African trade union organisation, the All-African Trade Union Federation (AATUF), was founded in Casablanca, Morocco in 1961.[3] The AATUF was born out of the resolutions from the first All-African People’s Conference (AAPC) held in 1958 at Accra, Ghana headed by prominent Pan-Africanists like Tom Mboya and Kwame Nkrumah.[4] The AATUF aimed at promoting Pan-Africanism and being an independent federation of labour unions that prioritized the interests of all African workers throughout the continent.[4]

Tom Mboya in 1962, one of the original founders of the AATUF.[5]

Following the Second World War, African workers under colonial rule were split and led to the formation of various independent trade unions across the continent.[4] And after Decolonization of Africa in the 1950s, many regional African trade unions maintained close relations with their respective imperial centres.[4] Following independence, early attempts at Pan-Africanism via union federation were further complicated by Cold War ideological differences. As African nations subscribed to combinations of anti-colonial nationalism, pro-Western capitalism, as well as series of Marxist and socialist alignments within the Eastern Bloc, ideological differences from the 1950s to 1970s obstructed attempts at unity.[4]

While the AATUF was initially successful in remaining non-partisan and free from foreign intervention during the 1960s, the newly created African Trade Union Confederation (ATUC) supported by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) was beginning to grow and destabilize AATUF's resolution to be the sole representative for a Pan-African workers' trade union federation. This led to a partitioning of African trade unions along ideological lines[4] and the AATUF began to align with the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) in response to the ATUC’s creation in 1962.[4] The several trade union federation organisations in Africa clashed and interfered with each other and provoked internal conflicts throughout the 1960s.[4]

The open split between the two unions (AATUF and the ATUC) brought in the involvement of the newly formed Organisation of African Unity (OAU) as a mediator for disputes in African trade union affairs.[6] Beginning in 1964, both the AATUF and ATUC sent delegations to OAU summits to gain exclusive recognition as the sole representative of African workers’ interests. This led to the court of African Labour Ministers, who gathered from 1966 to 1967, to discuss what role trade unions should play in Africa’s development and how to achieve unity between them. In 1967, the OAU’s Administrative Secretary-General called all national trade union centres to attend a conference aimed at reconciling AATUF and ATUC conflicts and aspirations.[6] This conference was called the organisation of African Trade Union Unity (OATUU) held in November, 1972 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.[7] In collaboration with the International Labor Organisation (ILO) in organizing the conference, the OAU Secretary General presented unity as a core principle to all trade union centres in Africa.[7] Under the auspices of Pan-Africanism, an agreement was finally brokered in April, 1973 formally establishing the OATUU.[6] The OATUU’s creation meant the absorption of the AATUF, ATUC, the Pan-African Congress, as well as other smaller workers’ organisations across Africa.[8]

1973: Dennis Akumu

1980: Ibrahim Ghandour

1986: Hassan Sunmonu

2012: Owei Lakemfa

2015: Mezhoud Arezki

While there has been much coverage for the history and the formation of the OATUU, the details of their current duties and activities have not been covered as extensively by secondary publications.

As of 2022 there are 73 affiliates to The Organisation of African Trade Union Unity, 33 from former Francophone nations, 28 from former Anglophone nations, and 12 semi-regional trade unions who operate out of the OATUU's four regional sub-organisations: The Organisation of Trade Unions of West Africa (OTUWA); Organisation of Trade Unions of Central Africa (OTUCA); Southern Africa Trade Union Coordinating Council (SATUCC); and the Organisation of Trade Unions of Arab Maghreb (OTUAM).[15]

Their key vision is to represent workers from all African countries for the “realization of social and economic justice for all”.[16] The OATUU has 12 listed official goals[16] all striving to strengthen the relationship and coordination of economic activities between their affiliate members. The OATUU carries out a variety of education, training, research and advisory tasks across various areas in the Africa: national defense, democracy, women empowerment, entrepreneurship, health and safety, actions against HIV/AIDS, African economic integration, and trade.[16] Upholding the rights of African trade unions are also a big part of their mandate, and the OATUU will do so by assisting labour unions navigate the complicated bureaucratic processes of international organisations, such as filing the paperwork for labor claims with the ILO.[16]

The OATUU acts as an agent representing the economic interests of African governments in international organisations, namely pushing back against International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and World Trade Organisation (WTO) policies that harm African domestic industry and labor standards.[17] By also working with the African Union (AU), the OATUU attempts to continually strengthen the political, social, and economic integration throughout the continent.[18] Together, the OATUU, the ILO, and the AU, in consultation with the United Nations (UN) have strived to strengthen the African Economic Community (AEC), promote African alternative frameworks to Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAP), and push for debt-cancellation across Africa.[18]

The OATUU’s 4th Congress in 1985 held in Lagos, Nigeria collapsed as a number of unions accused the secretariat of misusing funds and manipulating votes.[19] The OATUU’s Secretary General refused to resign and a thus Provisional Coordinating Committee was established within the OATUU.[19] In 1985, the Workers Education Programme (WED) canceled a project funded by the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) and the ILO citing for concerns of foreign influence and the misappropriation of funds by the organisation's leadership.[19] Thus, divides within the OATUU ensued, further jeopardizing the OATUU's official mandate of promoting Pan-Africanism and unity.[19]

The OATUU has had difficulty in establishing their own fundraising capacities, and so the basis for the OATUU has always been under significant threat; the OATUU still persists today mostly because of its ability to continue to leverage resources through the ILO.[19] The financial problems the OATUU experienced in their early years of establishment meant that educational programmes had to be funded by external donor participants.[20] The financial hardships led to the OATUU becoming greatly dependent on, and beholden to the interests of other governments and political groups. For example, Libyans from the National Union of Libyan Workers (NULW) were compelled to accept substantial sources of funding from “the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), the Soviet Union, and several other African governments” regardless of its conditionality throughout the 1990s.[20]

At the "Democracy and Popular Participation for African Trade Union Leaders" seminar held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in April of 1994, trade union representatives identified mass illiteracy among the African population as an issue that was negatively impacting the growth of democratisation,[21] a fundamental tenet of the OATUU's mission in Africa. Many felt that the socio-economic conditions had been negatively impacted by Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) supported by the IMF and the World Bank, ultimately reducing the capabilities for democratic developments in the continent.[21] Representatives decided that in order to increase the level of democratisation within the continent, trade unions needed to increase levels of education and training programmes, not just for representative members but also their surrounding communities.[21] The hope was this would put pressure on African governments to create more employment, focus on education, and promote social values.[21]

• Bernards, Nick. "The International Labour Organization and African Trade Unions: Tripartite Fantasies and Enduring Struggles." Review of African Political Economy 44, no. 153 (2017): 399–414.
• International Centre for Trade Union Rights.Trade Unions of the World. 6th ed. London: John Harper Publishing, 2005. ISBN 0-9543811-5-7
• Kalusopa, Trywell. "Whither African Trade Union Movement? Lessons for Restitution and Reform." In Labour Questions in the Global South, edited by Praveen Jha, Walter Chambati, and Lyn Ossome, 123-146. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021. ISBN 978-981-334-635-2.
• Martens, George. "Unity Eludes Africa's Trade Unions." Industrial Relations Journal 16, no. 4 (1985): 85–97.
• OATUU. “About Us.” The Organisation of African Trade Union Unity, May 28, 2021. https://oatuu.org/about-us/.
• OATUU. “Affiliates.” The Organisation of African Trade Union Unity, May 28, 2021. https://oatuu.org/affilates/.
• OATUU, ILO, and ECA. "Seminar on Democracy and Popular Participation for African Trade Union Leaders: Seminar Report." Paper presented at the 13th Popular Participation Workshop Series by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, April, 1994.
• Zeleza, Tiyambe. "Pan-African Trade Unionism: Unity and Discord." Transafrican Journal of History 15, (1986): 164–190.