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The Gambia: The Awakening of the Sleeping Trade Unions
Saturday, 07 May 2011 15:04
By Mathew K JallowThe crackle of a mellow yet determined voice pierced the hot mid-morning air and stirred a frenzy of agreeable nods and whispers from the giddy blue-collar crowd. What the voice lacked in vitality and certitude, he made up for in the unequivocal message that seemed so characteristic of the booming baritone of Gambia’s late Godfather of Trade Unions. In the flash of an instance, between the tall walls of the Independence Stadium, it seemed as if his character had once again come alive from far beyond the grave. The mesmerizing eloquence of the voice that once drew the vacillating to commit to a higher purpose seemed to have had a new rebirth. There were subtle and glaring similarities between the two individuals, yet what
distinguished them, was a yawning abyss of generations removed from each other by the passage of time and the constancy of death and renewal of life. The 1960s and 2010; forty long years separate and different in more ways than one. This year’s May Day rally of the Gambia National Trade Union Congress (GNTUC) at the Independent Stadium was like a ghostly apparition, a moment of history reminiscence of a time long gone, a throw-back to the pulsating 60s, and a reminder of the man whose charisma and fearlessness catapulted the Gambia Worker’s Union to the pinnacle of its glory days. Momodou E. Jallow, also fondly called (Jallow Union) or (Jallow Jallow), a class act, the man who would almost be president, was alive and well in the voice of Ebrima Garba Cham, Secretary General of the new Gambia National Trade Union Congress (GNTUC). But if the May Day rally was captivating in its momentousness, its messaging had all the imperatives of boldness and a sense of clear direction so critical to the survival of Trade Union Congress. By every account, this year’s May Day rally was refreshing in tone and mature in its purposefulness. Although this is an entirely different generation and M.E. Jallow may be watching with curious paternal interest from beyond the grave, who knows if his proud sense of his role in Gambia’s history has not robbed off on the younger E.G. Cham. True, Jallow was the greatest trade unionist ever to walk the dusty streets of Banjul, but his successor Ebrima Garba Cham is exhibiting his predecessor’s flair for what is right and just and indications are, he knows what Gambian workers want and has a unique opportunity to lead them to that higher ground. The Independence Stadium May Day rally turned into a carnival hope and optimism for a reason, and E. G. Cham’s boisterous message did not betray ambivalence and uncertainty. In stead, he stood his ground and in so doing, measured up to the iconic Jallow Jallow, if not in style, then in pure determination. Judging by his no-holds-barred delivery at the Independence Stadium, E. G. Cham’s performance clearly showcased a recipe of how to defeat Gambia’s political apathy in the face of the total collapse of our country’s administrative and bureaucratic systems. The challenge ahead for the Gambia National Trade Union Congress is surmountable by steadfastness and a patriotic hunger to undo the monumental disservice Yahya Jammeh and his regime have done to our country. The message for E. G. Cham is to not just lap up empty applauses from his Trade Union members, because Gambia’s dire predicament is too grave to treat like a tawdry show. E. G. Cham’s May Day articulation of the litany of injustices that have kept Gambian workers in virtual bondage for a decade and half, marks the new beginning of a true Gambian story still be written. But whether it would be written in the cold blood of its innocent citizens remains to be seen. Paradoxically, the challenge for E. G. Cham and other officials of the Gambia National Trade Union Congress is not how to escape the regime’s unforgiving brutality unscratched, but the temptation of succumbing to Yahya Jammeh’s cunning political courtships and the trappings of power and privilege that will leave them slavishly beholden to Yahya Jammeh. The fragility of human morality and the casualness with which ethics is weighed, makes it tempting for the Trade Union leaders to get entangled in Yahya Jammeh’s vicissitude of lies and deadly deception; two hallmarks that have seen Jammeh escape dangerous political cross-hairs. The Gambia National Trade Union Congress must beat back sixteen years of labor repression characterized by total disregard for international labor laws and the paramount need for simple human decency of treating Gambian workers with dignity and respect. Yahya Jammeh may try to preempt any union action with pathetic concessions and insignificant relaxation of his deadly stranglehold on workers right, and if union leadership falls for his ruse, they will do a great disservice to Gambians and in the end, perhaps forever condemn themselves to footnotes of our unwritten history. Yahya Jammeh’s greatest weapon is not the dangerous missiles and arsenal of weapons hidden in plain sight, but the billions of our collective financial assets which he uses to buy favors, loyalty and compliance from wary citizens and hungry mouths. Gambia’s labor problems are too serious to any longer ignore; the circle of perpetual hiring and firing; the lack of administrative recourse to settle labor disputes; the arbitrariness with which workers are fired without justification; the absolute lack of job security; the gaping disparity between wages and the cost of living; the biased and unfair practices in hiring and promotions, and the retirement of citizens in the prime of their lives among other labor related grievances. The Gambian workers, along the entire linear hierarchical chain, from the cabinet minister to youthful apprentice behind a truck, has for long been left holding the short end of the stick. E. G. Cham and the Gambia National Trade Union Congress, as representatives of every Gambian worker; from the doctor in the hospital, to the teacher in the classroom, the carpenter on the shop floor and everyone in between, has an obligation to protect their rights from the heavy handedness of the Jammeh regime. Gambians deserve dignity in the workplace, not the rule by the fear and intimidation planted in their minds by Yahya Jammeh’s Machiavellian inspirations. As it is, The Gambia is too close to the edge of the precipice of social and political anarchy and this is no time to shy away from our responsibilities to ourselves and to generations still unborn. But if Yahya Jammeh’s biggest weapon, his bribe money, causes Gambia Trade Union Congress leadership to relegate and consign their responsibility to all Gambian workers to the back-burner, history will then judge them unmercifully. The coming challenge they face will put Gambia Trade Union Congress smack between a rock and a hard place; to choice to accept bribery from Yahya Jammeh, and in so doing bat for their narrow self-interest at the expense of the collective interest of Gambian workers or have the courage and the fortitude to do what is hard and stand to face the challenges of this rotten system that has shown it is unburdened neither by the laws of our land nor by simple moral and ethical prerogatives. The crusade for justice for Gambian workers must by dint of our obligation to right what is wrong, be enjoined by every citizen without the slightest hint of hesitation or reservation. In the final analysis, we must remake The Gambia into the mirror image of the rest of the civilized world; a country ruled by laws, not by the draconian arbitrariness of absolute and unfettered state power. That is the bottom-line.
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