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Untapped youth

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Page context: Home > Transport International Magazine > Issue 24 July 2006 > Untapped youth

The Swazi transport labour movement must focus on winning round young members, Says Percy Masuku

In Swaziland, the railway, road and aviation sectors have been badly hit by restructuring, out-sourcing and privatisation. As a result, the majority of trade unions are facing serious attacks on their qualitative and quantitative strength.

Restructuring has sliced away the older, senior workers who had experience and who saw the importance of the union in their daily lives, leaving behind the younger generation who are not that easy to mobilise.

Young people now form the majority of the workforce in road – and especially public – transport. Most have only basic education. Some have hardly attended any formal schooling and are trying to make ends meet in tough circumstances.

They find themselves at the bus station simply because they have few other options. They are then employed by individual bus and taxi operators, who exploit them. They receive meagre wages and work long hours without overtime pay, without leave and with no days off.

Efforts by organisers from the Swaziland Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (Stawu) to mobilise these young people have so far been in vain. The workers do not have any job security and turnover is high. Workshops have been identified as necessary and dates set, but few workers attend them.

Lack of engagement

This is not a problem exclusive to Stawu. Most unions admit their youth mobilisation initiatives fall flat on their faces and never see the light of day.

The Swaziland Nurses’ Association boasts a largely young membership, but it can be very hostile at times to union work. In the Swaziland National Teachers’ Association, most of the older teachers are either taking voluntary exit packages or ascending to the administration of schools, while some are being retired. The young teachers who remain pay union subscriptions, but most are only interested in getting the benefits of the union’s saving and credit scheme.

An escalating number of “labour brokers” operate in the country, setting themselves up and collecting dues from workers, to represent them often just on a particular issue or dispute, then leaving them to fend for themselves in every other respect.

Restructuring in the civil aviation industry has caused similar problems for the union as those in the public and rail transport sectors. However these are exacerbated by the fact that aviation workers form a very small segment of Stawu as a whole. This means that the union has to grapple with the challenge of representing their interests fairly.

Further restructuring is expected in freight road transport, since Cargo Carriers Swaziland (Pty) Ltd, which is a multinational private company, has hinted at plans to retrench close to 270 workers anytime soon.

This will be a major blow to the union, because it is one of the few major branches that contribute organisationally and financially to its survival. Once again the longer serving workers represent a bigger cost to the company and so they will be the main target of cuts, thereby leaving behind the younger, less experienced and relatively new staff.

Meanwhile, in the railways, management has managed to set the workers against one another, causing a serious misunderstanding between some union officials and workers. Both the union leadership and staff members appear to acknowledge that lack of awareness among some union members on the general structure of the union and its operations left the organisation open to attack.

The way ahead

One positive in the midst of this crisis is that unions are now beginning to see the importance of trade union education coupled with organisation, and are taking steps to develop their own educators, located in among the rank and file and upwards.

Following a workshop on leadership development in Manzini in October 2005, the union has identified shop-steward training as the next step towards ensuring that the life-blood of Stawu is maintained.

This training is being conducted with the assistance of Empowerment Through Training, a labour service provider that has as its trainers comrades who have been in the labour movement for a substantial amount of time.

Stawu also wants to mobilise the security sector, which is another sector attracting otherwise unemployed young people. It makes sense for the union to recruit security workers, because of their proximity in many cases to transport services, where they often carry out an auxiliary function.

An issue that still remains a challenge to Stawu is the setting up of recruitment targets and sticking to them. It will be important to intensify education and training, while ensuring that recruitment forms part of the whole package. This means unions, including Stawu, should train ample organisers/recruitment agents and educators. There is a particular need to put in place programmes specifically designed for young and female workers.

Percy Masuku worked until recently as youth organiser and educator for the Swaziland Transport and Allied Workers’ Union. He now works for the labour service provider Empowerment Through Training.

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Issue 24 July 2006

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