Why Organize?

Today trade unions are under threat from various forces that are advocating for their extinction.  Unions need to organize for survival.

Some factors that constitute new threats to Trade Unions include:

– Changing workforce expectations vis-à-vis foreign investor conditions of employment. Many employers tend to avoid the obligations that go with long-term full-time employment by employing people as casuals and contract workers.  This has contributed to high job insecurity.

– Changing industry structures, which have impacted on traditional union strongholds of manufacturing and processing industries.

– Changing industrial and labour relations systems and practices (outsourcing, telework).

– Globalization and liberalization of economies. Liberalization for example engrossed a wide-ranging labour law reforms such as the amendment of the Employment Act and the Industrial and Labour Relations Act of 1997.  The amendment implied the abandonment of the One Union in One Industry principle and removed the prescription of the Zambia Congress of Trade Unions as the only recognized Labour federation.  This led to multiplicity of trade unions thereby weakening their power.

– The rise in anti-union tendencies – where employers have taken a unitarist stance, expecting all employees to identify themselves with the objectives of the organisation.

– Casualization

1) The department is responsible for the development of trade unions through increased membership. 

2) It assists affiliate unions in organizing and recruitment of new members and maintaining them by ensuring membership service to them.  

3) The department also assists unions in grievance handling thereby promoting industrial harmony.