TUCOSWA PULLS OUT OF TRIPARTITE

MBABANE – TUCOSWA has, with immediate effect, withdrawn from the tripartite structures, which is a forum that includes government, workers and employers federations.

The move by the Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA) comes at a time when government, pushed by the threat of losing the African Group Opportunity Act (AGOA) status, is putting through Parliament the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Bill of 2014.

TUCOSWA, in the tripartite, represents the country’s workers.
The congress has said they had opted to withdraw from the tripartite structures after numerous attempts to engage government, and even going as far as issuing a deadline on which they would withdraw if their efforts to engage were in vain.
TUCOSWA demands that government must fully address their concerns, which include the right to demonstrate freely.
In their statement, the congress stated that government, through the use of the Royal Swaziland Police Service, had stopped a series of meetings convened by the congress. They claim this was in violation of international labour laws.

The statement released by the congress yesterday reads in part: “We refer to our advice to the Labour and Advisory Board and the National Social Dialogue Committee on the above issue, which we were awaiting direction with regard to continued participation in tripartite structures, from our leadership structures and regret to advise that all the federation’s representatives in the various structures are hereby withdrawn with immediate effect.

“Your office is reminded that the tripartite structures were disrupted in 2012 and later restored by the Principles Guiding Tripartite Labour Relations agreed to by the Swaziland Government, workers and employers’ federations and published as a general notice by the Government (Notice No.56) dated 28th May, 2013.”

The statement went on to quote the General Notice in clause 4(b) of the principles provided in the notice: “All processes and programmes whose progress was affected by the issue of registration of federations shall be continued in line with principles tripartism and shall be recognised as legitimate and all decisions made or resolutions reached shall be binding on the tripartite partners as if they had been registered in terms of the Industrial Relations Act 2000 ...”

TUCOSWA said government, however, contrary to the spirit and purport of the general notice, continued to disrupt its programmes and activities on grounds that it was a federation not registered in terms of the Act.
The statement further lists the incidents where there were altercations and disruption of planned activities by the congress.

These incidents include: the Manzini Local Shop-stewards Council meeting at the Caritas Centre on July 22, 2013; A Global Enquiry Panel at The George Hotel in Manzini, on the basic rights of workers, where workers were supposed to make testimonies on their conditions of work in their various places of employment, specifically at the Textile and Apparel Sector, on September 6, 2013; the blockage on the way to the Oshoek  Border Gate of the Leadership of TUCOSWA on their way to a press briefing in neighbouring South Africa.

It further lists a TUCOSWA-organised World AIDS day activity in Matsapha on November 30, 2013.
Vincent Ncongwane stated that the position of government was articulated in a letter by the Attorney General addressed to the federation dated September 4, 2013, whereat the General notice was said to be giving limited undefined rights to federations.

“Our position is that there is limit to the above-mentioned Guiding Principles and indeed if TUCOSWA can be allowed to undertake the protest action; there would be no further need for TUCOSWA or other federations to be registered in terms of the Industrial Relations Act, and the Act itself would become useless as an instrument for regulating industrial relations,” read the statement.

Furthermore it states that the Attorney General continued and stated that, based on the decision of the Industrial Court case 342/2012, TUCOSWA is not a registered federation in terms of the Industrial Relations Act.
To further compound this is that the Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, Cyril Kunene, signed an affidavit in support of this argument.

Ncongwane further alleged that state-owned enterprises and government departments continued to refuse to cooperate with the federation notwithstanding the memoranda dated December 17, 2013 to both government ministries and parastatals informing them that they could engage TUCOSWA.

“The situation was not helped by the fact that even your ministry itself has largely ignored our correspondence as if to act in unison with the others. Note that when we attended the National Social Dialogue Committee meeting on March 17, 2014, we were assured that you would look into this and we would see some improvement. To date the situation is still the same, both on the ministries’ side and the parastatals,” Ncongwane said.
The trade unionist also said in a meeting with the International Labour Organisation high level mission on January 29, 2014, TUCOSWA asked for a written response from the head of government on government’s position on the congress.
“We indicated that this response, or lack of it, would determine our continued participation or withdrawal from all tripartite structures. Needless to say nothing has been forthcoming in this regard to date,” Ncongwane said.
In the withdrawal from the statutory bodies, TUCOSWA revealed its position by stating that they cannot be part of the tripartite structures.

“The federation cannot be seen to be good in one hand and bad on the other and it be for government to determine when it would like to deal with the federation and when it would not,” part of the statement said.

Continuing, it said: “It is clear to us that our continued participation in these structures is largely not serving the interests of our members but government, in presenting a picture of engagement when nothing tangible can be pointed out.

We shall, however, remain available to resume our participation as soon as government has levelled the engagement platforms by recognising all our rights in terms of the Industrial Relations Act.”

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