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Finally, we`re seeing TUCTA doing its job
2007-09-25 09:23:42
By Editor
The Trade Union Congress of Tanzania, TUCTA for short, has often come under fire from its members and the larger public for appearing to have a special liking for issuing inconsequential or impossible declarations dead blind to the plight of workers in the country.
The congress is a loosely knit constellation of just over a dozen self-styled free affiliates, some well placed financially and therefore wielding immense power and influence and others weaklings in practically every sense and therefore often dismissed as lame ducks.
Anyone who knows anything substantive about the congress will most likely affirm that, at best, it has over the years been known for speaking with vigour and fury about the way Tanzanian workers are given a raw deal without really being listened to.
For example, the congress has countless times pleaded for 350,000/- as the minimum wage and the call has attracted scanty attention.
However, it would be overly judgemental to conclude that the congress has been solely to blame for taking no serious follow-up action upon discovering that most of the recommendations and calls it was coming up with fell on deaf ears.
A more positive approach would be for its critics to put themselves in its shoes and see whether they would have taken a different route that would have won them better dividends in their protracted negotiations with firmly established employers, some incorrigibly notorious for arm-twisting workers’ representatives.
So, for all their weaknesses, deficiencies and false steps, workers` unions have not presented themselves as complete flops.
At least, some of the submissions and noises they have made in recent months have kept a few employers on their toes and drawn effective sympathy from ‘friends of poor workers’ in different parts of the world.
Long-serving unionists like Tact secretary general Nestory Ngulla and Boniface Nkakatisi, the highly rated twice re-elected secretary general of the powerful Tact affiliate that oversees the interests of workers in commercial, industrial, financial and consultancy institutions and is popularly known as TUICO, will readily attest to this.
The ripples caused by TUCTA`s recent threat that it would organise a nationwide workers` strike if the government disregarded workers` pleas for better work terms also show that it is no longer possible for anyone to ignore the unions and still be safe.
Arguably, even more significant proof is the fact that intervention by the congress in plans by Dar es Salaam regional authorities to force workers in the city to contribute cash to the construction of secondary school classrooms desks has made Regional Commissioner Abbas Kandoro swiftly backpedal on the matter.
It is noteworthy that the congress has used the force of logic to make the authorities concerned understand, arguing that most workers in the country earn hardly enough for their own survival and all are already subjected to enough taxes and to spare.
That is a job well done and credit must be given where it is due. Surely, workers would appreciate seeing more such action. Congratulations, TUCTA.
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