African Labor Disunity:

...The Charter adopted at Casablanca specifically endorses the principle of trade-union independence and proclaims that this principle means non-interference of governments and political parties in trade-union affairs...

...But the crucial element in that victory—the clause requiring some 18 national trade-union federations to leave the large free-world International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU)—was so hotly disputed that its implementation was postponed for 10 months...

...Until now it has been run only on a provisional basis, but as a result of the bitter, though predictable, experience at Casablanca, it will soon become an active, fully operative federation...

...ICFTU officials seem hopeful that there will be nothing like mass disaffiliations...

...This double drive toward isolation of African labor from its links with non-Communist unions in other continents and toward "unity" under the hegemony of the Guinea and Ghana trade unions and their allies has been opposed by such African labor leaders as Tom Mboya of Kenya and Ahmed Tlili of Tunisia...

...The absorptive ambitions of the Pan-African trade-union movement have scarcely been concealed—particularly those of the Union General des Travailleurs de l'Afrique Noire (UGTAN), the Conakry-based federation founded by Guinea's President Sékou Touré, which has affiliates in a number of French-speaking African countries...

...The Christian Workers Federation, which has a dozen affiliates in Africa, mostly in French-speaking countries, sent only observers to Casablanca and has refused to join the movement for an All-African Federation on the grounds that to seek "unity for the sake of unity" is absurd, particularly in view of the deep discord among the various groups concerned...

...in fact, some observers believe that the 10-month clause may be modified in the near future...

...Yet in Guinea and Ghana, the very countries whose governments and union leaders are in the forefront of the Pan-African movement, the trade-unions, far from being autonomous, are closely linked with the political power...

...One of Guinea's leading trade-union and political figures, Abdoulaye Diallo, Minister of Guinea to Ghana and formerly a leader of the WFTU, recently stated that he rejected categorically the idea of having, in the new African states, either a political opposition or an autonomous trade-union movement —two things which, indeed, Diallo seems to regard as identical...

...The disaffection of many of the delegates at Casablanca stems not only from fear of the new Federation being dominated by the Guinea-Ghana group and their allies but also from resentment over such organizational methods as the imposition on the conference of a previously set up Steering Committee...

...Contact with the "opposition" was maintained by also electing Tom Mboya, but he had left the conference beforehand, and it was questionable whether he would serve —and particularly whether he would comply with the requirement to remove his Kenya Federation of Labor from the ICFTU...

...A key figure in the discussion of such plans is said to be Cisse Alioune, the Senegalese tradeunion leader who broke with the Guinea-dominated UGTAN federation and played a prominent role at the Casablanca conference in trying to achieve a compromise between the opposing factions...

...It does and must commit us to free and democratic trade-unionism based on the fundamentals of freedom of association and human liberties, including the dignity of labor...

...The Charter of the new All-African Federation does not explicitly mention the ICTFU...

...At its general congress in 1959, UGTAN declared itself "in the camp of revolutionary trade-unionism" and denounced "a narrow professionalism and reformism which are prejudicial to the vital interests of the African workers and people...

...In his report to the conference, Morocco's Mahjoub ben Seddik, who chaired the Preparatory Committee and was subsequently chosen as the first President of the All-African Federation, declared: "The interference of the state in trade-union affairs, whether such interference is paternalistic or, on the contrary, dictatorial, repressive and tactical, must be denounced as an attempt to turn aside the real will of the workers and as a serious obstacle to their organization...

...Ben Seddik's dual role as the President of the new All-African Federation and as head of a national unit affiliated with the ICFTU shows how far from neat and simple this matter is...

...When efforts to settle the dispute, concerning external affiliation failed, the Charter—providing for disaffiliation after a 10-month period of grace —was only adopted after the bulk of the opposition had left the conference halls...

...Two major related issues were involved in the Casablanca meeting: the freedom of each national tradeunion federation to decide upon its own affiliation with world-wide tradeunion bodies, and the question of trade-union autonomy in general...

...They argue for a relatively loosely knit All-African Federation which would allow the national units to decide on their own international affiliations...

...The terms of the Charter constituted a victory for the delegations which have been the main force behind the Pan-African trade-union movement: Guinea, Ghana and Mali...

...They fear that the principal promoters of the All-African Federation are seeking to isolate African labor from its contacts with the rest of the non-Communist world in order to make it serve their own ambitions, or perhaps the aims of powers beyond the African continent...

...The profound differences in outlook between the various groups of African trade-union leaders could not, of course, be concealed as a result of the discussions at Casablanca...

...On the other hand, the opposition to domination by the Guinea-Ghana group by no means comes exclusively from ICFTU affiliates...

...it may also be the occasion for new regroupings of dissident elements...

...The wide range of views presented pointed up the deep divisions in outlook among independent African states, while the Charter finally adopted after intense debate among opposing factions may turn out to be the symbol not of African labor unity, but of an eventual formalization of disunity...

...Though an advocate, like many other Africans, of "positive neutrality" and "positive non-alignment," he has made it clear that he believes neutralism is not a one-way street...

...It simply declares that member unions may not be affiliated with "international tradeunion organizations...

...Attending were some 35 delegations representing countries and territories from the Mediterranean to the Cape...

...The ICFTU African Regional Organization (AFRO) was established last November on the initiative of African leaders who wanted their continent to have a stronger voice in international trade-union councils...

...The members of the Secretariat are from Guinea, Ghana, Mali, the United Arab Republic, Morocco and Algeria...

...For example, plans are now being made for a widely representative meeting of national trade-union federations from the states of the "moderate" Monrovia bloc, whose governments met in the Liberian capital last month...

...The inability to form truly PanAfrican institutions—in the tradeunion field as in the political—is certainly not surprising in view of the disproportion between the profound aspiration for African unity and the absence, at present, of the political conditions necessary for its realization...

...Of course, the national units affiliated with the ICFTU do not present a unanimous front...

...It defined itself as "the unitary trade-union organization of the working class and the laboring masses of Black Africa," and as "the only trade-union organization which really defends the interests of the workers and of the people...

...In the view of the ICFTU African affiliate organizations, which have a total trade-union membership of nearly 1.5 million, the insistence on freedom to maintain their present international links is not an empty quibble...

...But since the ICFTU's rival organization, the Communist World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), now has almost no affiliates in Africa—and indeed warmly supports the disaffiliation stand of the group centered around the Guinea and Ghana unions—the clause is obviously aimed at removing the ICFTU from the African scene...

...In addition, ben Seddik was elected President of the new organization, and a seven-man Secretariat was named, dominated by the militant "Leftist" wing of African tradeunionism...

...Yet it should be remembered that the aspiration itself is as real and irreducible a political fact as are the difficulties...

...We have to watch both America and Russia," he said recently, and added that "our affiliation with the ICFTL does not commit us to the Western bloc against any other bloc in current world power politics...

...By Roland Gordon AFRICAN LABOR DISUNITY Casablanca meeting of trade-unionists splits over issue of international affiliations Casablanca The pan-African movement has given birth to a new institution: the All-African Trade Union Federation, formed at a recent meeting in Casablanca...

...The African Regional Organization of ICFTU, at a meeting last December, deplored that "under the pretext of Pan-Africanism attempts should be made to assimilate the free trade-unions to a type of organization which would only serve the political aims of certain governments...

...Roland Gordon is a freelance writer who reports on the African scene...

...Mboya, who along with Tlili was a leading spokesman for this position at Casablanca, has defended his concept of an African trade-unionism open to the outside world by saying that "the African personality is something we have to project beyond the boundaries of Africa...

...FREE TRADE-UNIONISM is necessarily a somewhat relative matter under the difficult conditions of the emerging states, where governments must appeal to all sectors of the population for a great degree of support in building their new societies...

...But it is hard to envisage the possibility of close cooperation—within an AllAfrican Trade Union Federation or any other framework—between the trade-union movements of countries which respect a vital minimum of labor freedom and those of countries in which the very principle of such freedom is denied...

...This period may provide a breathing spell for further negotiations toward a compromise solution...