International Trade Union Cooperation BRIEFING PAPERS N° 3/ 2007 responsible: rudolf traub-merz Global Trade Union Program www.fes.de/gewerkschaften TRADE UNIONS AND POLITICAL PARTIES IN AFRICA: NEW ALLIANCES, STRATEGIES AND PARTNERSHIPS 1 By Edward Webster Trade unions in Africa have a long tradition of political engagement, beginning with their involvement in the anti-colonial movements through to present day struggles for democracy. Their historical engagement in politics has been divided into three phases. The first phase was marked by a common struggle against colonia­lism where close ties were developed between trade unions and the national liberation movements. Trade unions, while being important actors, usually played the role of junior partners to political parties, without developing an autonomous social agenda outside and beyond the struggle for political independence. The second phase begins with independence and the introduction of state-led projects which rapidly expanded jobs in the public sector. During this phase formal union rights were often protected in theory but in practice unions were subordinated to dominant parties, losing an autonomous capacity to intervene politically. Instead unions were expected to play a dualistic role: first, that of aiding with overall natio­nal development, and second, the representation of the job interests of the rank and file members. The argument for this reversal of the primary role of unions to be developmental rather than represen­tational was based on the government belief that trade unions only represent a proportion of the labour force of these countries. A third phase, the phase of market regulation, began in the nineties. Faced by widespread state indebtedness incurred during the seventies and eighties, govern­ments during this phase came under pressure from the International Financial Institutions to adjust their budgets in line with the neo-liberal orthodoxy of fiscal austerity. Widespread job losses took place under these Structural Adjustment Programmes and most unions sought to disengage from the state-cor­poratist order which seemed to have lost its capacity to deliver. As trade unions began to resist retrench­ments, cuts in wages, privatisation, and the deterio­ration of social services, the labour movement emer­ged as a significant opponent of the one-party states that had come to characterise post-colonial Africa. 1 The article is a summary of the debates during a conference on“Trade Unions and Politics: Africa in a comparative context”, jointly organised in Johannesburg on July 21-22, 2006 by the Sociology of Work Unit(SWOP) at the University of the Witwatersrand, the Institute of Development Studies(IDS), University of Zimbabwe, the Politics of Development Group at Stockholm University and the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. The con­ference brought together African scholars and union activists. I would also like to acknowledge Bjorn Beckman’s report on this conference in the November 2006 Newsletter of RC44, the Research Committee on Labour Movements for the International Sociological Association. The organisers of the conference, Professor Bjorn Beckman, Sakhela Buh­lungu and Lloyd Sachikonye will be publishing selected papers from this conference in a forthcoming edited manuscript.