LABOUR-SWAZILAND: Unions Out to Challenge Monarchy

By James Hall Reprint | | Print |

James Hall

MBABANE, Jan 3 2003 (IPS) - Swaziland’s labour unions are once again taking the lead in the pro-democracy movement that seeks to transform King Mswati from sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch into a constitutional monarch within the democratic framework of an elected government.

‘’We wish to see the king as a symbol of cultural unity, and we want democracy instead of the dictatorship we now have,” Jan Sithole, secretary general of the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU), told IPS.

Key to the unions’ stepped-up political activities in 2003 is a mass action to protest government policy called by the SFTU on Jan 23-24. ‘’We will shut down the country in order to be heard,” promised Sithole.

The strike’s co-sponsor is the Swaziland Federation of Labour, whose president Vincent Ncongwane specifies the action’s goals: ‘’We want government to give up plans to purchase a 72-million-U.S.-dollar luxury jet for the king, which the country cannot afford. And we want government to return the country to rule of law by abiding by court decisions.”

The plane’s purchase comes at a time when a quarter of the population is without food due to last year’s crop failures, and are kept alive by emergency relief from international donors. New AIDS statistics indicate that 38.6 percent of the adult population is HIV positive. The cost of medication for the 20,000 HIV positive people who develop full-blown AIDS each year is beyond the ability of the treasury to pay.

The unions feel the country’s royal leadership is unconcerned about such problems. After years of relative quiet, union leadership intends to return to mass protest in 2003.

There is nothing new about the unions’ political agenda. When Swaziland became independent, the radical teachers union of the 1970s gave headaches to Mswati’s father, King Sobhuza, with their demands for higher salaries and better working conditions.

In the mid-1990s, the SFTU, which has 21 affiliated unions with a combined membership of 80,000, launched a series of national workers stay-aways to press government on a social, economic and political package called ‘’The 27 Workers Demands.”

Sithole was arrested three times during the strikes. A 1996 action completely shut down the country for a week, cutting off essential services like water and electricity, and blocking the importation of petrol and consumer goods, 85 percent of which come from outside the country.

Some of the ‘’27 Workers Demands” were met by government, such as the establishment of Workers Day on May 1 and greater rights for street vendors in the informal sector.

But all political demands to reform royal rule were sidelined by a promise from King Mswati to deliver a new national constitution. That was 1996, and the unions claim that while several commissions have spent millions of dollars in the pursuit of the elusive national governing document, political reform is as distant today as it was in ten years ago.

Since 1998, the SFTU has pursued a strategy of using international allies to bring pressure on government. The International Labour Organisation, based in Geneva, has sent fact-finding teams to Swaziland to investigate SFTU reports of workers rights and human rights abuses.

The United States trade federation, the AFL-CIO, has told Mbabane that if true democratic reform is not forthcoming it will press the American government to drop Swaziland from the African Growth and Opportunities Act, an economic stimulus scheme that assists Swazi exports in the United States.

Such pressure has prompted government to revise specific pieces of legislation the unionists found objectionable, such as an Industrial Relations Act that was amended by palace advisors to make strikes virtually impossible.

‘’But fundamental political change, real democratisation, has not happened,” says shop steward John Dube, the union representative of his factory.

Traditionalists in government question what following the labour federations have amongst the general public. ‘’They are people out for power. They are not interested in the average Swazis, like the king is,” a senior prince told IPS.

Members of the conservative Swazi Senate have accused the labour federations of putting their political ambitions ahead of workers welfare. ‘’These strikes have nothing to do with salaries or working conditions,” Senator Walter Bennett once submitted during Senate debates.

SFTU secretary general Sithole defends the labour federations’ involvement in governance issues. ‘’When the price of food and petrol go up, cutting into workers spending abilities, because of bad government policy, it becomes our concern. Government mismanagement is our concern when hospitals don’t have medication and crime victimises workers. You cannot separate factory floor issues from political issues, because politics determines the laws we live by.”

Perhaps Swazi workers are out of practice when it comes to making their political views known, but a stay-away called last month to preview this month’s mass action was poorly attended. Some banks and post offices closed as a precaution against disturbances, greatly inconveniencing the very workers whose welfare Sithole said was his concern, but most businesses and industries were unaffected.

Political observers blamed poor timing. The strike was called six days before Christmas, on the day workers received their December salary payment and holiday bonuses. Workers were obliged to go to their jobs, despite the federations’ stay-away call, or lose their Christmas pay.

The local press declared the strike a ‘’flop”, and government officials were elated. But the mass action set for Jan 23 may be a different matter. The civil servants union has vowed to participate. If public transport operators keep their vehicles off the road, something they refused to do last month, the stay-away’s success will be assured.

King Mswati has promised a new national constitution will be ready this year. The labour unions have vowed to reject it. The workers federations’ strikes over relatively minor issues like the purchase of a jet for the king may be seen as preparation for larger battles to come.