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Despite the uneasiness which has lurked at the backdrop of the struggle between capital and labour within liberal democracies, today trade unions are, in general, secure and important centres of private power, enjoying affirmative legal protection and widespread social approval. That is the ideal situation, but is that what obtains in Kenya?

Even to a casual observer, it is clear that the unions in this country have lost much of their ballast, and represent a pale copy of the immediate post - independence period. Why, and how has this come about? One of the reasons is corruption - that is - the co-option of some sections of trade union leadership in the country into the establishment. This is what is referred to as official corruption. There is also another form of corruption - that is the buying of trade union leaders by some elements in the private sector. The reasons could be varied. It could be a firm trying to prevent an industrial action, say a strike; it could be a bribe for ensuring that a far-reaching collective bargaining agreement is not arrived at; it could be a bribe to deprive a worker dismissed wrongfully from pursuing redress for violation of his or her rights; and so forth.

In Nigeria it is said that one has to bribe a clerk in a commercial bank in order to obtain a withdrawal form to be able to take out some money from his or her own account! Well, Nigeria’s case is a by-word - a place in fact one should be best advised not to disembark from an aircraft when passing through Lagos because the immigration officer will not stamp your visa, which he cannot see unless his eyes are annointed with some naira or some US dollars! Should you vehemently point out that your visa is in order and actually there in the passport for everybody to see, the officer, will with the finality befitting a hangman; deny this and an appeal to his or her boss will yield no iota of positive response as the latter is a firmly fixed cog in the corruption machine. Try to have your flight re-confirmed, and you are in for another extortion of a bribe.

That is Nigeria for you; the most populous country in Africa, with substantial petroleum resources, but where Nigerians queue for petrol! No doubt things might be improving now, but it takes a lot of effort to disengage the limpet’s grip on rock; Verily, verily, verily, Nigeria is still on the top of the charts. Kenya is not far down; it’s very much within the bracket of countries on the road to ruin and serfdom - that is, if something, akin to a major surgery to remove the bloated tumour of corruption, is not done immediately, that is, now. And Atwoli and his COTU comes out ruefully as part and parcel of this deadly malaise. I have not read a recent copy of Guinness Book of Records but I do feel that I will find there the inclusion of Kenya for the ingenuity of some of its citizens and allies in milking the country’s workers dry; if there is no such entry, then it will be a veritable sin of omission! As Julius Robert Oppenheimer, the nuclear physicist who oversaw the production of the first atomic bomb (1943-45), to be soon dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, “we have all sinned”. What I am saying is that the pervasiveness and the great depths of ineptitude in our trade unions have been as a result of what I prefer to call “collective suicide”.

COTU and its affiliates are the epitome of greed and moral decay. T is here that one finds the whiffs and fumes of anarchy. They continue to be a major source of private wealth. This, to a great extent, explains the extremely degrading level of sycophancy at various levels of leadership in the union sphere.

It is inconceivable that Atwoli can go public and rant at NGOs by claiming that he is as clean as cotton. It is truly, as the late Hungarian writer, Arthur Koestler, would have agreed, “darkness at noon” - something very much out of place, like the sun rising from the west. But it is also a healthy thing within the milieu of our political hygiene. The mere fact that Kenyans can now read Atwoli’s sentiments is in itself the first step towards the catharsis that Kenyans need to go through with the union leadership. For the truth that must be said is that ever since COTU was formed in 1964 out of a presidential commission it has simply been a pestilence, a plague-indeed, a very corrosive agent of development, the sure passport to poverty. Clearly, one would have expected that the first duty of our trade union leaders is to promote public enlightenment: this means educating the workers and other sections of Kenya’s national life on their rights. It means sloughing off the culture of fear, which has brought us where we are today: on the edge of a bottomless pit.

But materialism has knocked at our doors repeatedly and beckoned us. And so this formula coined many years in the book The Ruling Class (Elementi di Scienza Politica) by the Italian scholar, Gaetano Mosca. Published in 1896, is informative here; The relevant portion from the book reads:

“Struggle is one of the continuous and never-failing aspects of human life. Social forces, therefore, regularly manifest themselves in aspirations to power. Soldiers want to rule, and they are a hard group to control since they hold the guns and know best how to use them. Money wants to rule and it is hard to control money because most people succumb to the glamour and influence of wealth. Priests want to rule, and they have the weight of the ignorant masses and the majority of the mysteries of life in their favour. Scientists want to rule, and, from Plato to Comte and from Comte to Scott, they have dreamed of dictators who will establish their technocracies and their ‘rules of the best’. Labour wants to rule and would rule if it did not always encounter the law of the ruling class and fall into the hands of its leaders. Public office-holders want to rule, and they might easily to do so for they already sit in the seats of power”.

The Purpose and Role of Trade Unions

The trade union movement provides one of the best universities, and when unionism was, great leaders emerged from the orientation: Tom Mboya in Kenya, Walesa in Poland, and Fred Chiluba in Zambia, although clearly the last mentioned person has been a disaster – turning the country into a veritable autocratic state. Today, however, one does not hear much about education for workers in this country, that is as a systematic planned endeavour; the crumbling of the Tom Mboya College in Kisumu is symptomatic of the tattered state in which the trade union movement finds itself today.

Indeed, the level of awareness of workers’ and trade union rights - amongst our trade union leaders has reached such a nadir that at times we hear a leader - in all seriousness - saying that the worker has nothing to do with the constitution making process but rather is basically interested with his or her stomach. For a leader who has descended to such low heights of understanding, trade union movement is not the right thing for him or her: he or she would better be selling charcoal or a butchery somewhere. A trade union is, first and foremost, a by-product of the freedom of association, and the allied freedoms of assembly and association. It is founded in civil society to boot and anybody who doesn’t understand that is better off talking to the marines!

What is clear is that the law as it stands is actually facilitative in improving the lot of workers and their unions. But, unfortunately, the unions have given up their rights and freedoms to the extent that not long back trade union leaders had to obtain clearance from the Office of the President, whatever that meant to travel abroad. What was clear was that there was no legal requirement for this. Again, at one point COTU was prevailed upon to allow KANU representatives on its key organs - again something completely anomalous. Not only that at times the executive - at the highest level thought it could issue a decree baring strikes. Many times over The provincial administration - never civil and never aware of the sovereignty of the power in any political system, felt bound to meddle in union affairs completely unaware of, or clearly contemptuous of the constitutional provision. In their usual zeal - in the fashion of the proverbial bull in a china shop - DCs, DOs and even other lesser tin gods like the chief and the sub-chief would stop union meetings from taking place - allegedly because the Public Order Act restrained the holding of the gathering on account of national security. And this happened and continues to happen under the noses of Atwoli and his cohorts. So much for his great COTU!

Of course the legal and political environment must be conducive for trade unions have to be effective and credible. But it behooves the unions and their members, to maximize the rights available under the legal system. Which is why Atwoli and the general leadership of the unions stand accused. Trade unions enjoy wide immunities from civil and criminal proceedings (see Trade Unions Act, Cap.233, Laws of Kenya), which free them to pursue the rights and claims of their members without fear of legal harassment or sanctions. We are not saying there are no restrictions under the current legal system - there are, but these do not remove the basic need for both unions and their members to tenaciously fight for their rights. The easiest way of losing one’s profit is to stop respecting them. This danger hovers over the labour movement in Kenya like the sword of Damocles.

According to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), a trade union is a continuing and permanent democratic organization, voluntarily created by, and for workers, to protect them at their work, to improve the conditions of their work through collective bargaining procedures, to seek to better-conditions of their lives, to secure their natural rights, and to provide an effective means of expression for the workers’ views on problems of society and politics.

Thus when one hollers “Nyundo!”(or “Hammer!”), (a clarion call, adopted by the current crop of union leaders) one is sending across the message that a united people can never be defeated; that the labour movement is an important segment in a country’s national life - that is, a power to reckon with; and that the sector is interested in addressing all the major issues impinging on their working and living conditions. One of these is of course corruption, which in turn is manifestation bad governance. The bringing to an end of bad governance in a democratic society is clearly one way of fighting corruption on the postulation that corruption can only be effectively curbed if its root causes are established.

There is a time-tried, tested, and increasingly prevailing school of thought, which is convinced that the essential core of the trade union Government derives from the conviction that every human being comes into the world with a birthright of freedom which cannot be taken from him without doing violence to his human nature. This is because, by the very fact that a man or woman is a human being, he or she has certain characteristics, which guarantee his essentia1 rights. Among these rights are the natural rights such as the right to food; the right to leisure; the right to think freely; the right to procreate, and the right to associate with other human beings for economic, social and political purposes.

Trade Unions and Corruption

Of the major institutions, which have atrophied over the years, is the trade union movement. This has been because of many factors - one of them being the fact that the check-off system has made trade union leaders complacent, with a good number of them having gone to sleep and still snoring. But there is a more insidious and, indeed pernicious, factor: this is the twin-situation of having trade union leaders who are more executive than the executive itself, and having civil servants who do not respect the rights of unions and workers in the performance of their duties. Co-option of trade union leaders into the establishment has been the one big nail in the trade union movement coffin. Such trade union leaders now no longer see a strike as a necessary option. They see it as some kind of subversion and are wont to make a press statement on an impending strike so as to please their masters, or whoever makes them tick. They can even buy space in the newspapers to say that NGOs are meddling in their sector and should be rounded up by government for instigating strikes in the country. “ Is this how trade unionists talk; calling for limitations on civil society activities!”

Today, as I write, the President of our Republic, who is also the Head of Government, has the power under the constitution of COTU to ratify or not ratify the three top national officials elected at Governing Council of the umbrella body. This constitution is not as a result of some intense deliberation between trade unions to form a confederation; no, it was nothing like that. The truth of the matter is that the document was crafted in the Attorney General’s Chambers (that was the time of Mr. Charles Njonjo) and it was a situation of “take and comply accordingly”. Unless this executive encroachment is removed, then genuine autonomy of the labour movement will remain a mirage; The fissure in the autonomy is manifested in some kowtowing to the executive so as to get a clean bill of political correctness. That is what Atwoli was looking for from NARC and the good Labour Minister could not read or see this.

Many years ago, a miner in England, by the name Treswell, wrote a powerful classic titled “ The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.” In Kenya, we have had philanthropists of all time; here I am referring to one of the rip-offs of the century: the plunder of workers’ funds supposedly held under trust by the National Social Security Fund. Workers should have come to the streets years back with one clear message: “Enough is enough.” The National Social Security Fund was established in 1965 by an Act of Parliament (Cap.258), as a provident fund, with the primary objective of providing financial security for workers at retirement. It was initially a Department at the Ministry of Labour. In 1988, the fund was converted into a state corporation (that is, a parastatal) under the direction of a Board of Trustees. But even as a casual observer is only too aware, trusteeship is not in the NSSF vocabulary; the fund has for years been the goose that lays the golden egg: its finances and resources have been frittered away - left, right and center - and all for the benefit of the politically correct, their minions, and public officials who owe their jobs not because of merit but because they have a powerful godfather somewhere.

This excessive bleeding of the workers’ body must be staunchest, and the labour movement has to do something fast-indeed, now. During elections of top trade union officials, money is poured”, to use a characteristically Kenyan terminology. All of a sudden, senior trade union leaders – like their counterparts, that is councillors in local authorities when election fever is at its high pitch – disappear from sight – ensconced in some remote hotel. People who use money to buy votes are clearly corrupt and they can hardly be useful partners in preventing or fighting corruption.

The office of the Registrar – General has not been a credible independent office as regards the registration of political parties, trade unions, and other voluntary associations, as well as their de-registration. The office has been overly keen in watching the political windvane as this relates to the wishes of the executive in any manner affecting unions.

For example in the case of central organization of Trade Unions (K) vs. Benjamin K. Nzioka and 5 others, (Civil Appeal No. 66 of 1993), the Court of Appeal was constrained to criticize the action of the Registrar – General, Mr. Ombago, for speedily recognizing the coup of Messrs. Johnson Ajowi Ogendo, and George Muchai, and their supporters. The highest court in the land felt that the course of action the Registrar – General had taken was even embarrassing to his principals (meaning top leadership in Government) who he thought was serving effectively.

Towards a National Democratic Culture

Trade Unions must be committed to democracy – good governance, transparency and accountability if at all they have to may play a beneficial role in the democratization process on which the country has embarked upon, albeit reluctantly. The starting place is the union itself: it has to be run on democratic lines so that one does not preach water and take wine. How, crying aloud, does one make of a leader who declares publicly that COTU is not a civil society - that is, he is NGOs should leave them alone.

What we need to entrench is a tradition of liberal democracy, electoral competition among different parties for political power and training social movements and other institutions of civil society are all factors that make a powerful contribution to the continuous priority given to universal and free provision of key social services and economic benefits. A trade union which exclusively deals with what is called “ business unionism” can never really satisfy the workers. The trade union which fights not only for the economic demands but for the far larger and deeper spiritual aspects of humanity, not only wins worker loyalty but probably achieves far more for the workers in the long run because it is dealing with the whole of man and not with just the stomach.

The workers need to develop in all respects, not just materially. Hence the need for the education of workers. Such education is in no way restricted to lecturers or the reading of books. On the contrary, one of the most valuable lessons to be learnt in this type of adult education is going on strike and walking on a picket line. This “ active” form of collective bargaining by workers, their activities as shop stewards, over a period of time, their participation, in different work, and both their attendance at and speaking before different meetings of their fellow workers. Without these activities and with the opportunities afforded by the trade union movement to the rank and file, it is unquestionable that many men and women who, today are leaders of labour and have had an opportunity to the fullest capacity, would have remained completely uninformed.

The overwhelming fact is that the trade union is a voluntary organization of human beings dedicated to wholesome purposes comprehending the economic, the political, the cultural, and the spiritual, and dedicated to an unending crusade for the betterment of the workers of the world specifically, and for all people in general. Indeed, the very essence of trade unionism is that people are no longer content to be “managed” like commodities or pieces of industrial plant. Leaders of trade unions in Kenya, please take note.

* This amended paper was first written jointly with the late Christopher Mulei.

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