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Issue No. 139 | 07 June 2002 |
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With Prejudice
Interview: Class Action Safety: A Mother's Tale Unions: The Hottest Seat in Town International: Defensive Enterprise Economics: A Super Deal? History: A Radical Life Media: Cross Purposes Review: When the Force Is Unconscious Poetry: Wouldn't It Be Loverly
The Soapbox The Locker Room Bosswatch Week in Review
 Romeo and Juliet?Robbo's RaveLatham Ad NauseumOur Home Is Girt By WireHands Off Hooligans!
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International Defensive Enterprise
************* That priority concern for the union movement is on the agenda of the International Labour Conference, which opened in Geneva on 3 June. At the grass roots level, the unions are establishing contacts and tackling the "most urgent" problems, so as to ensure the survival of workers subjected to harassment and dangerous and undignified working conditions. Illustrations of just how difficult it is to organise people in this sector are given by Anne-Marie Mambombe and Marie-Jos�e Lokongo who are responsible, respectively, for the informal sector and women's issues at the Congolese UNTC. The sectors they cover range from palm oil production in Kinshasa, to the fishing industry in Mbandaka or farming in the Lower Congo. How and for how long have you been in contact with these workers? A-M. M: Several government measures, such as the "Za�ration" of our economy in 1973 and the structural adjustment measures of the early 1980s, have completely destroyed the country's economic structures. Many businesses have been wound up, involving mass redundancies, particularly of women and leading in all cases to unemployment. Many of the people affected have then tried to survive by setting up their own businesses, however they have lacked start-up capital and management skills and the businesses have not tended to last long. Since the union was also losing a lot of members we thought about how best to contact such workers, some of whom were ex-members, in three specific sectors: small businesses, fishing and agriculture. What kind of help have you given? A-M. M: We want to help these workers with more than just answers to straightforward questions on employment contracts. You should bear in mind that such people get a lot of problems from the administration and the police, since they are not registered as employees and do not, of course, have contracts. Nonetheless, they also have to pay heavy taxes to the State. We would like to help them with health care, via our health insurance mutual society ("mutuelle"), but we cannot afford to fund such services at the moment. So in 1998 we set up an "enterprise unit" geared to training these people. I'm personally in charge of the unit and was trained for the job courtesy of ILO funding. Everyone working in the informal sector is living from day to day and we need to convince them to look beyond mere survival. We need to tell them that if they are to be successful they will need to run their businesses better, and that will also enable them to get credit. So far we have trained 54 "entrepreneurs", as we like to call them, both to boost their confidence and to teach them self-reliance. And though it might seem paradoxical for a union to be training employers, we regard it as a vital task, since through them we will get new members. All the people we have trained are now members of a close network and pay fees to our union. With that money we are able to provide some of the credit requested by other workers in the relevant sectors. Could you give us some concrete examples of this work and its results? A-M. M: I'm sure you will laugh, Marie-Jos�e, but I want to quote her as an example, since it shows what kinds of problems Congolese workers have to tackle if they are to survive. I met Marie-Jos�e at a market. At the time Marie-Jos�e was already working with the union, but she didn't earn enough to make ends meet so she sat on the ground selling palm oil from a 5-litre can, using a jam-jar as a measure. I asked her why she didn't try to make a few improvements by selling her products in a little store and getting some training? In the end I managed to convince her and today her little shop is known throughout the town and business is going well. She is registered with the authorities, sells her products in much better sanitary conditions and is able to employ a few other people when she is away. We have also contacted several village communities in Bandundu through a project to fight a disease that affects manioc, which is the staple food in the Congo. Here the UNTC's rural development and farming cooperative department has taken charge, with some promising results. We have managed to persuade the villagers to work in a cooperative set-up and from the income generated from the fields managed by the community they have been able to pay for a village clinic. We are now looking at ways of improving transportation of the harvested products to other places. Since the roads are very bad, cycles are the current mode of transport. But if money could be found to pay for oxen and a cart it would be much more efficient. We also want to set up a canteen to enable the village communities to purchase basics like salt, sugar and clothes at more reasonable prices. At the moment, for instance, to get a beaker of salt they have to give a bag of manioc in return, which is totally out of proportion. And how has the women's department got involved in this work? M-J. L: We have had a women's committee in the UNTC since 1979. It became a full department in 1981. One of its tasks is to "help women contribute to the economic development of the country" and that is why we got in touch with men and women workers from the informal sector. One of our most recent projects has been to create a cooperative for salting fish in Mbandaka, on the banks of the river. We initially realised to our horror that the people there were suffering from malnutrition although they had valuable resources at hand. Many were unemployed, others were civil servants who were not receiving their wages and many families had been wiped out owing to financial problems and the nearby war. Thanks to external funds, we were able to set up a cooperative. Our donor organisation insisted that men should be involved in the project, so we formed a group of 18 women and 12 men. The business involves catching and salting the fish on the spot and then sending them to Kinshasa by boat. The UNTC then takes charge of selling the fish and the profits are sent on to the workers. We also have a sowing project with 5 villages, 3 of which are in the Lower Congo. We provide seed to the farmers who also work together in small groups of 6 or 7 people. Based on a contract we signed with them, they send us back 1/3 of their harvest.
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