Before the Wind of Change

The Orientation of Labor Unions in Africa

Bibliographic Data

ID23453069
AuthorsHakeem Ibikunle Tijani (0000-0003-3490-5433, corresponding author)
Year2012
Pages1-18
Publication date2012-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeCHAPTER
VenueUnion Education in Nigeria (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherPalgrave Macmillan US (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1057/9781137003591_1
OpenAlexW2476248483
ISBN9781137003591
LanguageEN
References cited11

There is no history of sustained Communist influence in British African colonies, although individual union leaders with Communist sympathies appeared from time to time, particularly in West Africa during the colonial period. In Britain’s East and Central African colonies, any political sympathies were directed by unions toward their respective nationalist groups, particularly in Kenya, where the general secretary of the Federation of Labor (KFOL), Tom Mboya, was also the leader of the African members in the Legislative Council. 2 This largely explains why World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) never succeeded in gaining a foothold in British East and Central Africa. In addition, the prohibition of the import of WFTU literature and colonial Africans’ difficulty in obtaining travel documents to travel to Iron Curtain countries. Furthermore, the relative “backwardness” of the Central and East African colonies compared with those of West Africa and the fact that the non-Communist International Confederation of Trade Unions (ICFTU) was able to gain a footing in the area since its inception in 1949 and exert its influence among most African union leaders were also reasons for the colonial government’s success in limiting Communist influence. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Backwardness · Colonialism · Communism · Development economics · Economic growth · Economic history · Economics · Government (linguistics) · International trade · Nationalism · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Trade union · African history and culture studies · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · History · Labor Movements and Unions · Law

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