History and heritage; contract and status in African Employment Relations: the case of The Gambia

1. History and heritage; contract and status in African Employment Relations: the case of The Gambia © Alhajie Saidy Khan, IPPM, Keele University

2. Research context: The Gambia

3. The Gambia: some basic data • Total area: 11,300sq km • Population: 1,688, 350 (2007 estimates) • Ethnic/tribal groups: 5 major • Religion: 90% Muslim; 9% Christian; 1% indigenous beliefs • Literacy rate: 42% (approx) • Industry: Groundnut processing; Fisheries and Tourism

4. Labour force Total Labour force: 400,000 • Agriculture 75% (individual & collective family farms) • Industry: 19% - agro processing • Services: 6% -Tourism

5. State of organised labour These figures are highly suspect

6. Employment • 11 % workforce (about 44,000)in waged employment • 60% (26,000) are public sector workers • 18,000 eligible for union membership • 7% work in family businesses in return for basic subsistence • Union membership of 30 to 45,000 – highly suspect

7. Methodology • Case study of Dock employment relations • Methodological pluralism • Based on ‘social systems’ concept of SSA society • Involving great deal of reflexivity allowed by emic status of researcher • Broad qualitative ethnographic paradigm involving: • Semi-structured interviews • Documentary review and analysis • Some observation

8. Social systems concept: Matriarchs, Saints and Politician The formal dimension The State & its rational institutional/legal arrangement Formal Business Org. Employees & Managers as Mother’s children and Brethren: Informal dimension Extended Family Clans: Matriarchs, Patriarchs and Mother’s children’ Informal dimension Religious affiliations: ‘Saints’, Disciples and Brethren

9. Research design The Organisation Observation In-depth Interviews Work processDockworkers Official meetings Regular employees Conversations/chats GPA management Organisational documents, correspondences and publications Formal Dimension Government Officials Union and Employers’ reps., official documents and publications Informal Dimension Community elders Religious leaders/scholars Social commentators etc Interviews

10. The Gambia’s ER Framework of ‘Social partnership’ Demands Negotiation/Reconciliation Litigation • Workers’ organisations • Trade Unions • Staff Associations Civil/criminal courts The State Depart. of Labour (LABs & JICs) Employers’ Organisations CCI & Industrial sector orgs. Industrial Tribunals

11. IR & Changing Political, Economic & Social contexts

12. Organisational context: The Gambia Ports Authority • Establish 1972 Ports Act – as a statutory public enterprise • Remit: Control & manage the Port of Banjul, two provincial ports, all jetties and Ferry services along the River Gambia • Principal Port: - On the estuary of the river Gambia - 26 miles from Atlantic - Entrance channel – draft 8.5 metres minimum 10m Max - Quay area – 750 sq. metres with a fixed roro ramp - 38,000 & 3000 sq. metres of open & covered storage - Cargo handling: 1.5 million tonnes pa; 17 Containers per hr; general cargo 1000 tonnes per shift and 48 tonnes per gang hour • ‘Service port’ model - controls all port activities • Operate under Performance contract & Memo of Understanding under the Public Enterprise Act (1989) & LTESD • Employees – 380 direct employees &

13. Framework for Dock employment relations: National Dock Labour Scheme (NDLS) Port JIC Minimum Wage Determination Port Labour Board Department of Labour (Scheme Administration) Recruitment Registration Deployment Discipline Supply & demand for dock labour • Dockworkers • Unions • Individual dockers • Port Employers • Shipping Agencies (8) • GPA Payment of Wages

14. Dock labour force Age distribution Breakdown of registered dockers

15. NDLS: an analysis • Context of analysis – conflict over neo-liberal reform agenda • Key players: GG, GPA & MDWU • Main issues of dispute • Lack of legally identifiable employer • Gang size and Composition • Age & Retirement • Discipline/Grievance Procedure • Flexibility & Productivity

16. Main employment relations issues Management priorities Union/Dockers priorities Issues Importance (%) Labour force reduction 27 Communication 16 Training 14.5 Discipline & restrictive practices 12 Security/Safety/welfare 12 Wages & Bonus scheme 7 Age profile 7 Miscellaneous Issues 4.5 Issues Importance (%) Pay security, conditions and severance terms 23 Safety/working methods 17.5 Welfare 16 Training 13 Bonus scheme 11.5 Transportation 11.5 Gang size/over manning 5 Others 2.5

17. The state of Dock employment relations: some conclusions • ‘Contract’ base on archaic structures and less than relevant formalities • Resulting in a state of ‘organised disorganisation’ • Characterised by excessive managerial prerogative but extreme of managerial indiscretion • Instead, high levels of compelled Managerial indulgence • Thus assertion of ‘Status’ - indigenous paradigms to address Managerial failures

18. Mimicry as reassertion of ‘status’ • Status - ‘previous fixcifity of rights and obligations based on traditionally defined status’ (Hyman, 2004: 418). • ‘The discourse of mimicry is constructed around an ambivalence’ (Bhabhab, 1994: 86). • Evidence of Status – mimicry of traditional African concepts and behaviour to deal with the ambiguities and failure of the formal structures and processes • Failures that generate extreme levels of ambiguity within the formal and thus, resultant Managerial ambivalence • Thus, mimicry – imitations of traditional forms and processes as alternatives and/or subversion of the formal structures and processes

19. Some general conclusions (1) In relation to general IR theory • SSA ER is characterised by tensions and contradictions between formal Western systems and African values and interests • These tensions manifest themselves in patterns of managerial ‘indulgency’ and worker resistance - non-compliancy and forms of ‘mimicry’ • The contradictions can, however be managed by imaginative borrowing from development of Pluralist IR theory (Fox, 1966; 1985; Fox and Flanders, 1970; Ackers, 2002), to SSA realities

20. Some general conclusions (2) Probing these tensions and contradictions requires: • A qualitative approach that is based on actors’ social meaning (Weber, 1968) and aims at linking context-specific studies to the ‘critical realism’ agenda (Edwards, 2005) • A conceptual framework of African society drawing on Durkheim’s notion of the social system as ‘reality sui generis’ (Giddens, 1974) and Radcliff-Brown’s theory of functionally integrated social system (1949) • Data gathering techniques that enable researchers to speak to workers in their own social setting and languages • A degree of reflexivity allowing for reasonable ‘dialectics between judgement and guidelines’ (Hammersely, 1992), especially during data collection