VZCZCXYZ0001
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHDS #0886/01 0921300
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 011300Z APR 08
FM AMEMBASSY ADDIS ABABA
TO SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 0109

UNCLAS ADDIS ABABA 000886 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR DRL/IL: TU DANG 
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR/ILAB: TINA MCCARTER 
DEPARTMENT FOR AF/E 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ELAB EIND ETRD PHUM SOCI USAID ET
SUBJECT: ETHIOPIA: UNIONS AND UNIONIZATION AN EVOLVING PHENOMENON 
 
 
Summary 
------- 
 
¶1. Ethiopia's unions are small institutions experiencing 
difficulties in the context of a growing private sector.  Although 
both constitutional and labor laws recognize and protect worker 
rights, the economy's formal sector is small, and efforts to 
organize workers in-country are challenging. Employer resistance and 
limited labor law enforcement has adversely impacted unionization. 
These issues, together with workers' limited educational and 
vocational capacities and lack of awareness of their workplace 
rights, limit the operating environment for unions.  NGOs, foreign 
donors, government of Ethiopia (GoE) ministerial interlocutors, 
unions, and some employers are beginning to collaborate on 
vocational training efforts and the protection of worker rights. 
End summary. 
 
Context for Organizing Labor 
---------------------------- 
 
¶2. The Constitution recognizes a worker's right to form and join a 
trade union. Labor Proclamation 377/2003 serves as the basis for 
most current labor legislation protecting worker rights. Roughly 
300,000 workers or about 1% of Ethiopia's workforce are union 
members.  Unions are found largely in parastatals, sizeable 
enterprises, and export agricultural plantations.  91% of 
working-age Ethiopians are self- employed, mostly on small family 
farms, further contributing to low union penetration. 
 
Obstacles to Unionization 
------------------------- 
 
¶3. Employers frequently resist unionization, often severing 
employment union activists and organizers. Many employers maintain 
that union leaders are confrontational and that therefore unions are 
detrimental to private sector growth.  Likewise, many Ethiopian 
workers we have spoken with said they do not see unions as effective 
advocates for issues of safety, health, and freedom from 
harassment. 
 
¶4. Workers have the legal right to strike, however, the process of 
declaring a legal strike is complicated and lengthy. While the law 
prohibits retribution against strikers, labor leaders highlight that 
most workers are afraid to participate in labor actions due to high 
unemployment and long delays in the hearing of labor cases.  The 
Confederation of Ethiopian Trade Unions (CETU) blames some of the 
difficulties of union organizing and poor labor law implementation 
on a general lack of awareness among both workers and employers. 
The European Union (EU) recently funded intensive International 
Labour Organization (ILO) training programs on new labor law 
implementation for hundreds of people across four regions. MOLSA is 
encouraging interdisciplinary efforts to boost labor-related course 
offerings across the country. 
 
¶5. GoE interference in union activities and limited enforcement of 
worker rights creates additional deterrents to union membership and 
activism.  The 2007 International Trade Union Confederation report 
on the violations of union rights stated that many trade union 
leaders are regularly intimidated, removed from their posts and/or 
forced to leave the country, while others have been detained without 
trial.  The GoE closely monitors CETU activities, and has replaced 
the Ethiopian Teachers' Association (ETA) with a GoE-dominated 
association. 
 
¶6. The GoE has failed to protect the legal rights of union activists 
and organizers by insufficiently providing court resources to 
promptly adjudicate cases.  Union sources report that employers 
frequently fire union activists and organizers, in contravention of 
the labor law. Recently labor courts have required employers to 
reinstate such workers; however, due to case backlogs in the courts, 
lawsuits often take more than four years to adjudicate. 
 
Government Unions Discouraged 
----------------------------- 
 
¶7. Labor proclamation 377/2003 created political and legal space for 
new unions to be established. However, Labor Proclamation 377/2003 
specifically excludes teachers and civil servants, including judges, 
prosecutors, and security service workers, from organizing or 
joining unions.  The Ethiopian government employed 500,000 workers 
in 2007, constituting only 1.6% of the total workforce.  The law 
also prohibits strikes by public or private sector workers who 
provide essential services, including air transport, urban bus 
service and sanitation workers, electric power suppliers, gas 
station, telecommunications, hospital and pharmacy personnel, and 
firefighters. Such comprehensive exclusionary provisions further 
reduce worker incentives to unionize.  While half of the 
non-agricultural workforce is employed in the service sector, the 
numbers affected by the strike ban are currently unknown. 
The Role of CETU 
---------------- 
 
¶8. CETU is the national union federation.  The unions and their 
federations are funded by a 1% deduction of dues from workers 
salaries.  Of those dues, 60% funds the union's operational costs, 
30% finances the applicable sector federation (Ethiopia has nine 
sector federations) and 10% supports the CETU.  CETU and the 
applicable sector federations provide limited training for union 
officials via donor support, and currently lack the resources to be 
sufficiently effective.  CETU built a meeting hall for a training 
center, but is currently struggling to identify funding for dorm and 
classroom construction. 
 
Education and Productivity Low 
------------------------------ 
 
¶9. It is difficult to organize workers and obtain employer 
recognition when many workers are illiterate and/or lack adequate 
vocational training to meet current workforce demands.  CETU, GoE 
agencies, employers and donors recognize that to increase 
productivity and wages, Ethiopia must do more to match worker 
training and educational exposure to market-driven, private sector 
needs.  The adaptation and customization of international industrial 
standards will serve to increase the demands and rewards of 
technical certifications. Such initiatives will strengthen worker 
performance and enhance union development.  In an effort to upgrade 
union members' skills, CETU has recently entered into school 
collaborations.  Additionally, the Ministry of Labor and Social 
Affairs (MOLSA) is working with the Ministry of Education (MoE) and 
employers to revise the Technical, Industrial and Vocational 
Education and Training (TIVET) curriculum which prepares students 
for private sector employment. 
 
Union Successes 
--------------- 
 
¶10. Several recent union successes are worth highlighting.  In 2007, 
forty flower farms of 25,000 workers (total) recognized unions and 
negotiated collective bargaining agreements (CBA).  A 40,000 union 
membership among coffee and tea plantation workers well brands those 
industries in international mediums.  Compensation, benefits, and 
working conditions of unionized plantation employees with CBAs are 
comparatively better than those of non-unionized, casual workers. 
Labor experts estimate that more than 90% of unionized workers are 
covered by CBAs. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶11. Unions and union leadership are an evolving phenomenon.  In the 
current organizing climate, if union leaders ignore members' 
workplace concerns, parallel unions emerge and compete for 
membership. New union leaders tend to be younger, more responsive to 
member concerns, and more educationally equipped than their elder 
organizing mentors. While many workers are either unaware of labor 
laws or feel pressured to ignore them, perceptions are beginning to 
change. Although employer and GoE responses to unionization efforts 
have been guarded, cautious, and at times menacing, a slow trend 
toward union institution-building is emerging. 
 
YAMAMOTO