Organizing in the informal economy – the interest of informal labour in trade unions Figure 8.4 Trade union independence from government 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 45.4% 36.1% 40.0% 37.1% 20% 44.5% 38.2% 48.0% 49.3% 48.2% 44.3% 64.3% 21.8% 10% 0% Senegal Zambia Kenya TUs are NOT independent Benin Côte d’Ivoire TUs are independent Ethiopia Question:»Do you agree with the following statement? Trade unions in your country are independent from the government«. Note: Figures add up to 100 per cent if answer option»partly agree/partly disagree« is added. (ii) The actual social divide is not perceived to exist between employers and employees, but between the formal sec­tor 5 and the informal sector. A majority of the informal labour force regards trade unions as an organizational transmission belt for the benefit of groups in the formal sector. The orientation towards the formal sector should, however, not distract from the point that even though it does not gar­ner a similar level of support, large numbers of respondents also credit trade unions with taking care of»workers in the informal economy«. In Benin and Kenya, such assessments are even put forward by a slight majority, while in Senegal and Zambia more than 30 per cent support such an appraisal. The positive views of so many on the interest of trade unions in the informal economy are hardly rooted in practices on the ground. In Benin, some unions have been recruiting»work­ers in the informal economy« for a number of years and the Union Nationale des Syndicats des Travailleurs du Benin (UNSTB) appears to be doing quite well. 6 But in Kenya, the Kenya Congress of Trade Unions(KCTU) declared its readi­ness to campaign for the membership of informal workers only in 2019. Here, the high numbers with which trade unions are accredited as already taking care of»workers in the informal economy« can hardly be related to actual trade union activities. Instead, trade unions appear to enjoy a leap of faith, which is founded on the hope that they may arrive and take care of informal labour interests. Trade unions can take advantage of such»trust credit« when entering the informal economy in earnest. 8.3.2 Trade unions – independent from government? The view expressed by so many, that trade unions tend to act in the interest of the government immediately raises the question of the organizational separation between them. Are trade unions viewed as independent organizations or perceived as bodies guided and controlled by the state? In a liberal market-based society organizational independence from the state is regarded as a pre-condition for assessing the quality of interest representation. Only an independent organization is believed to decide freely whether it wants to support government policies or oppose them; a dependent organization is constrained. Figure 8.4 shows the views of informal labour on trade union independence from government: – In five of the six countries the views of informal labour are split into two camps of similar magnitude. While one camp is convinced that trade unions are indeed inde­pendent, the other is not and subscribes to the view that trade unions are an organizational extension of the state. – Ethiopia represents a special case in that a strong ma­jority declare trade unions to be an adjunct to the state. The predominant view in Ethiopia on the dependency of trade unions allows us to reconsider the previous views with regard to beneficiaries of trade union activities(see above). If trade unions are guided by the government, they cannot play the role of an interest-based actor who helps some but 5 The term»formal sector« is used metaphorically, not to refer to the formal economy. 6 The UNSTB reports their membership base for 2017 as follows: of the 84,526 members, 71 per cent belong to informally affiliated unions (Uhlandssekretariat(2018: 1-2). 73