Part 2 of 3
The socio-economic impacts of the IMF/World Bank-sponsored Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs), which the Government of Malawi started to implement in 1980, coupled with a wind of political change across Africa upon the end of the Cold War, provided fertile ground for the rejuvenation of vibrant trade unionism in Malawi.
The immediate arrest of Chakufwa Chihana right at the airport sparked strike activity across the country, which started with the support staff at the University of Malawi’s Chancellor College at the end of April 1992 and then David White Head & Sons on May 5, 1992. In 1993, the civil service experienced two huge strikes that crippled the country’s health, education, transport, and other sectors. The workers were mainly striking against low wages, poor working conditions, and the increasing cost of living.
Remarkably, it is the strike activity of 1992-1993 in which dozens of workers and ordinary citizens were shot dead and brutally injured by the state security apparatus while many others were detained, that eventually compelled the one-party state to start recognising and respecting the freedom of association, protection of the right for trade unions to organise workers and right for collective bargaining as enshrined in the International Labor Organisation (ILO) conventions 87 and 98.
During the autocratic one-party era, the 1st of May as a Labour (workers’) day was never observed as a public holiday in Malawi neither could the existing five sectoral trade unions and the federation (Trade Union Congress of Malawi) on their own organise and hold events to commemorate labour day.
The first event to commemorate labour day in pot colonial Malawi was held on May 1, 1994, at the Ryalls Hotel in Blantyre City, thus two weeks before the general elections and 11 months after the referendum in which Malawians consented to the restoration of multi-party democracy. Organized by the Hotels and Food Workers Union, this event was attended by the District Commissioner for Blantyre as a guest of honor, who represented the State President.
Since it was held at a hotel without publicity and amidst the one-party state legacy of state-sponsored brutal suppression of dissident voices, the event was poorly attended. In early 1995, under the new UDF government, which had incorporated trade union veteran Chakufwa Chihana as the Second Vice President, May 1 was officially declared a public holiday to be annually commemorated as Labour Day. Henceforth, organised by the Trade Union Congress of Malawi (which in the same year changed to be called the Malawi Congress of Trade Unions) and widely publicised, the activities to commemorate labour day were held on May 1st, 1995, at Kamuzu Stadium after a peaceful march to agitate for better working conditions in the new democratic dispensation.
The new Minister of Labour, Hon. Ziliro Chibambo, represented the State President as a guest of honour. All three tripartite partners (the Ministry of Labour, employers, and workers) were well represented at the top level. Amidst jubilations and ululations, during his address to the mammoth crowd that had jampacked the Kamuzu stadium, the Minister of Labour saluted the role of workers in the country during the struggles against colonialism and the one-party state.
#Lost History Foundation
