Trade unions in Sierra Leone

Trade unions in Sierra Leone first emerged in the period around World War I, with reports indicating that civil servants organised unions as early as 1912.[2] The Railway Workers Union was founded in 1919.[3] In the late 1930s, trade unions affiliated to the Youth League formed the Trade Union Congress (TUC) to coordinate actions within the labour movement.[4] In 1940, trade unions were legalised.[5] In 1946 tripartite bargaining councils were established that incorporated trade unions for minimum wage and sectoral bargaining with employers.[6] The Sierra Leone Labour Congress (SLLC) was founded in 1976. Although the country's civil war at the end of the 20th Century had a devastating effect on the labour movement,[7] unions played an important role in nonviolent resistance, launching a national strike in the immediate aftermath of the 1997 coup by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council.[8] Since the end of the civil war, trade unionism in the informal sector has grown.[9]

Trade unions in Sierra Leone
National organization(s)SLLC
Regulatory authorityMinistry of Labour and Social Security
Primary legislationEmployment Act 2023
Total union membership354,747 (2022)[1]
Trade union density13% (2022)[1]
Global Rights Index
4 Systematic violations of rights
International Labour Organization
Sierra Leone is a member of the ILO
Convention ratification
Freedom of Association15 June 1961
Right to Organise13 June 1961

Existing unions

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Collective Bargaining Agreements - Formal Sector (2022)[10]
Members CBAs CBA

coverage

Artisans Public Works of Services Employees Union 2,600 6 12,000
Clerical Banking Insurance Accounting Petroleum Union 3,010 7 15,000
Construction Workers Union 2,500 1 8,000
Electricity Employees Union 2,200 1 20,000
Hotel Food Drinks Tobacco Entertainment Workers Unions 580 2 14,000
Union of Mass Media, Financial Institutions, Chemical Industries & General Workers 1,500 2 13,000
Maritime & Waterfront Workers Union 1,500 2 13,000
Municipal & General Government Employees Union 1,000 2 3,000
National Union of Civil Servants 1,500 1 8,000
National Union of Forestry & Agricultural Workers 1,500 3 8,000
Sierra Leone Fishermen's Union 1,600 1 3,000
Sierra Leone Dockworkers Union 1,500 1 4,000
Sierra Leone Health Services Union 4,000 1 16,000
Sierra Leone National Seamen's Union 1,550 1 1,500
Sierra Leone Teachers’ Union 36,000 1 40,000
Sierra Leone Union of Postal & Telecommuncations Employees Union 1,054 1 2,500
Sierra Leone Reporter Union 450
Sierra Leone Union of Security, Watchmen & General Workers 3,200 2 5,000
Skilled & Manual Productive Workers Union 810 4 1,300
United Mine Workers Union 1,602 1 6,000
Union of Railway Plantation, Minerals, Industry & Construction 300 1 1,000
Sierra Leone Port Authority Senior Staff Association 82
Collective Bargaining Agreements - Informal Sector (2022)[10]
Members CBAs CBA

coverage

Indigenous Petty Traders Association 55,000
Indigenous Photographers’ Union 1,000
Sierra Leone Artisanal Fishermen's Union 17,106
Sierra Leone Traders Union 105,000
Sierra Leone Musicians Union 500
Sierra Leone Bike Riders Union 120,000
Motor Drivers & General Transport Workers Union 50,000 1 1,000
Union of Timber Factory Owners & Workers 1,237
Sierra Leone Commercial Tricycle Riders Union 700
Sierra Leone Technicians Union 700
Home and General Workers Union 1,500
Omolankay Whellbarrow & Porters Union 1,000

References

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Footnotes

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  1. ^ a b DTDA 2023, p. 7.
  2. ^ Orr 1966, p. 66.
  3. ^ Amolo 1979, p. 37.
  4. ^ Conway 1968, p. 61.
  5. ^ Hotchkiss 1979, p. 439.
  6. ^ Luke 1985a, p. 439.
  7. ^ Stirling 2013, p. 536.
  8. ^ Press 2015, pp. 105–148.
  9. ^ McDermott 2023.
  10. ^ a b DTDA 2023, p. 30.

Sources

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  • Abdullah, Ibrahim (1994). "Rethinking the Freetown Crowd: The Moral Economy of the 1919 Strikes and Riot in Sierra Leone". Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue Canadienne des Études Africaines. 28 (2): 197. doi:10.2307/485715.
  • Abdullah, Ibrahim (August 1995). ""Liberty or Death": Working Class Agitation and the Labour Question in Colonial Freetown, 1938–1939". International Review of Social History. 40 (2): 195–221. doi:10.1017/S0020859000113203.
  • Abdullah, Ibrahim (1997). "The Colonial State and Wage Labor in Postwar Sierra Leone, 1945–1960: Attempts at Remaking the Working Class". International Labor and Working-Class History. 52: 87–105. doi:10.1017/S0147547900006955.
  • Amman, John; O’Donnell, James (2011). "The Sierra Leone Teachers Union: Labor in a Post-Conflict Society". WorkingUSA. 14 (1): 57–71. doi:10.1111/j.1743-4580.2011.00320.x. ISSN 1089-7011.
  • Amolo, Milcah (1979). "Trade Unionism and Colonial Authority Sierra Leone: 1930—1945". Transafrican Journal of History. 8 (1/2): 36–52. ISSN 0251-0391.
  • Conway, H. E. (1968). "Labour Protest Activity in Sierra Leone during the Early Part of the Twentieth Century". Labour History (15): 49. doi:10.2307/27507909.
  • Denzer, LaRay (June 1982). "Wallace-Johnson and the Sierra Leone Labor Crisis of 1939". African Studies Review. 25 (2/3): 159. doi:10.2307/524215.
  • Hotchkiss, W. E. (1979). "Sources and Characteristics of Union Leadership: A Note on Sierra Leone". Indian Journal of Industrial Relations. 14 (3): 437–447. ISSN 0019-5286.
  • "Labour Market Profile Sierra Leone – 2023/2024" (PDF). ulandssekretariatet.dk. Danish Trade Union Development Agency. April 2023. pp. 1–36. Retrieved 8 November 2023.
  • Luke, David Fashole (1985a). "The Development of Modern Trade Unionism in Sierra Leone, Part I". The International Journal of African Historical Studies. 18 (3): 425. doi:10.2307/218647.
  • Luke, David Fashole (1985b). "The Development of Modern Trade Unionism in Sierra Leone, Part II". The International Journal of African Historical Studies. 18 (4): 625. doi:10.2307/218800.
  • McDermott, Joshua Lew (June 2023). "Searching for the Informal Labor Movement: Theorizing Class and Collective Action among Informal Workers in West Africa". Review of Radical Political Economics. 55 (2): 333–352. doi:10.1177/04866134221134548.
  • McQuinn, Mark (2017). "Strengths and Weaknesses of African Trade Unions in the Neoliberal Period with a Sierra Leone Case Study". Africana Studia. 28: 111–129.
  • Orr, Charles A. (1966). "Trade Unionism in Colonial Africa". The Journal of Modern African Studies. 4 (1): 65–81. ISSN 0022-278X.
  • Press, Robert M. (2015). "Mass Noncooperation Helps Defeat a Violent Junta". Ripples of Hope. Amsterdam University Press. ISBN 978-90-8964-748-1.
  • Stirling, John (May 2011). "Trade unions in a fragile state: the case of Sierra Leone: Trade unions in Sierra Leone". Industrial Relations Journal. 42 (3): 236–253. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2338.2011.00621.x.
  • Stirling, John (19 December 2013). "Power in practice: Trade union education in Sierra Leone". McGill Journal of Education / Revue des sciences de l'éducation de McGill. 48 (3): 531–550. ISSN 1916-0666.