Rights organisations and trade unions must work together
What you need to know:
Effective trade unions and human rights organisations are two sides of the same coin: they both fight, or should anyway, for the small fish in society.
It is time, and urgently so, that the distance between these social justice movements are bridged if Kenya will move towards a future that is brighter and wealthier for all.
It is time to harness what Vaclav Havel called the “power of the powerless!”
Over the past few years, I have focused significantly on issues affecting workers at the global level, but also nationally in countries such as the USA, UK, South Korea, Oman, Kazakhstan and Chile.
Like the human rights movement, the workers’ rights movement is in defensive mode, trying to fend off attacks that hit at the core foundation of trade unions, which is the right to form unions, collectively bargain and the right to strike to benefit workers. We now talk about “closing civic space”, and there are few better examples of this closing space than what is happening to trade unions and workers’ organisations.
In parts of the world such as Latin America, South Korea and the former USSR, trade union leaders are targets for state-sponsored atrocities such as killings, imprisonment, and smear campaigns, in much the same way that human rights defenders, activists and organisations bear the brunt of state persecution for dissent across the world, including in Kenya, where grassroots human rights defenders are killed or disappeared with impunity.
Effective trade unions and human rights organisations are two sides of the same coin: they both fight, or should anyway, for the small fish in society. They both work to improve the freedom and dignity of the poor, the vulnerable and the marginalised, including holding accountable, those with and in power. And those with and in power are invariably employers, big business, and politicians.
DEFENDERS VICTIMISED
Yet, despite these similarities in objectives, the levels of collaboration and alliance-building between trade unions and the human rights movement leaves a lot to be desired, especially in Kenya. Trade unions barely speak out when human rights defenders are victimised, harassed or killed. Conversely, the human rights movement is hardly present when teachers, doctors and other workers go on strike. And there is little contact, let alone collaboration, between these “powerless” groups which would both benefit from collectively pushing for their shared interests.
It was not always this way: Kenya’s independence would have surely delayed for years, had not there been collaboration between trade union leaders, with the pro-independence freedom fighters. Indeed, then, trade union leaders such as Tom Mboya, Makhan Singh, Fred Kubai, Bildad Kaggia, and Dennis Akumu were freedom fighters as much as Oginga Odinga, Jomo Kenyatta, Achieng Oneko, Paul Ngei and Kimathi Wachuiri.
But after independence, and as Jomo Kenyatta engineered the return of the colonial state of total monopoly of power in one person, the first step was the defanging and weakening of trade unions, which Tom Mboya did exceptionally well, ensuring that the State would always be involved in trade unions. So much so that during the one-party State era, trade unions were an integral part of the Kanu monopoly, doing their bit to perpetuate repression and economic stagnation, being part of the chorus that smothered dissent, and part of the Moi-era praise-singing choir.
WELL CLEAR
It was not surprising then, that the emergent human rights movement, first from the underground then above ground, in the 1980s and 1990s, gave trade unions a wide berth, opting to work outside the formal trade union movement even when groups like the Kenya Human Rights Commission took up workers’ rights issues in Del Monte and Kakuzi plantations respectively.
It is important to note that in Zimbabwe and Nigeria, for instance, trade unions were among the founding fathers of the first prominent human rights organisations in their countries.
The Zimbabwe Confederation of Trade Unions was a founding member of ZimRights, at one point the leading human rights group in Zimbabwe, as was the Nigeria Labour Congress instrumental in the formation of Civil Liberties Organisation, one of the “founding fathers” of the African human rights movement.
And in South Korea and Chile, especially, the pro-democracy movements that have achieved so much in both countries, have been anchored by the alliances between trade unions, student movements and human rights organisations, all working together with common goals and aspirations.
It is time, and urgently so, that the distance between these social justice movements are bridged if Kenya will move towards a brighter, wealthier for all future. It is time to harness what Vaclav Havel called the “power of the powerless!”
