Trade Unions in West Africa: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives ed. by Craig Phelan (review)

African labor studies are undergoing something of a revival, and Trade Unions in West Africa is a welcome addition to the literature. The authors examine the histories and activities of West African trade unions, particularly in Francophone countries. A key argument is that given the central role of trade unions in the nationalist movements of the 1950s, and again during the postcolonial crisis of structural adjustment during the 1980s and 1990s and the demand for democratic accountability and reforms that followed, trade unions must be considered in relation to wider social movements.

There are fifteen countries in West Africa, and not every colony or country receives attention. Francophone countries are well covered, although there is nothing on Senegal, the Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, or Sierra Leone. Two chapters are devoted to Ghana. However, the quality of many of the contributions makes this a worthwhile publication. Its mix of historical and contemporary analyses, including some by well-informed insiders, brings developments up to date.

Craig Phelan provides an introductory historical overview of the development of trade unions in the region. He points to the difficult environment that trade unions have always faced and the relatively small wage labor force in each country. Nevertheless, at crucial junctures unions have been able to play outsize roles as political and social actors within broader alliances of social and political forces. Phelan identifies four such moments, beginning with the push for independence. In the early postcolonial decades independent unions were suppressed and responded with defiant struggles against authoritarian governments. From the mid-1980s trade unions and other social movements responded to the crisis of structural adjustment and debt. Finally, from the late 1980s trade unions played a key role in demands for a return to multiparty democracy.

The first chapter, by Anne-Catherine Wagner, deals with the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) and efforts to develop trade union internationalism. From the 1940s French unionists attempted to transcend inequalities in the name of “brotherhood with the working class of the colonies.” But the assimilation model of French colonialism was problematic and African unionists were also nationalists. Through the 1990s dissatisfaction on both sides changed relationships. Partnerships between French and African unionists now focus on African realities rather than ideology, with greater attention to social movements.

Two chapters, by James Jones and Elizabeth Schmidt, revisit the great 1947–48 railway strike in French West Africa and the relationship between trade unions and the nationalist movement in colonial Guinea. The strike mobilized seventeen thousand workers over five months in six colonies and galvanized workers in the push for independence. There were numerous grievances, most importantly racial differentials in workers’ pay scales. Jones highlights the existence of widespread social support for the strike, although African politicians were lukewarm, and discusses memories of the strike and lessons drawn from it. Schmidt adds to her research on the role of peasants, workers, and women in Guinean nationalism to highlight the activism of trade unions leading to independence in 1958. But from 1955 on, workers’ interests were increasingly subordinated to the nationalist movement under Sékou Touré’s leadership of the Guinean Confédération Africaine des Travailleurs. Critics of the Rassemblement Démocratique Africain government, especially teachers, were purged and union leaders were co-opted.

David Perfect describes the history of trade unionism in The Gambia. As in many other parts of Africa, the first unions emerged from welfare organizations such as burial societies. Despite the weakness of the movement, the first recognized trade union in British colonial Africa was formed in Bathurst (now Banjul) in 1933. In the run-up to independence two effective general strikes were mounted in 1960 and 1961. Azizou Chabi Imorou shows that in Benin teachers were important critics of colonialism and after independence pushed for decolonization of the education system in the hostile context of...