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Katy Fentress replied on Wed, 07/17/2013 – 04:37 Permalink
When reading the experiences of Dhaka and Bangalore this week, it’s hard not to realise how many worlds away Nairobi is. As a country, Kenya does not have any large-scale garment industries, if anything one of its main economic sectors is the second-hand resale of the very brands (Primark, Matalan, H&M) that were made by garment workers in the above cities and, after having been worn ten times, were given away to charity. Similar working conditions are however experienced by employees in the industrial sector that specialises in household commodities (soap, toilet paper, tin foil, cellophane wrap, pots, pans etc) for the national market. These employees often live in slums that lay adjacent to the factories and provide a source of cheap labour to the owners who are not required to employ them full time or with a contract. As a result, any attempts on the part of NGOs to cajole factory owners into providing improved working conditions for their workmen have generally gone unheeded because it doesn’t benefit them or their profit margins. So far activism in these slums are constrained to tackling issues regarding land tenure because, as Ulfat mentioned, exhausted and underpaid workers are hard pushed to be able to organise effective trade unions to pressure their owners into respecting their rights.
It is important to remember how few consumer goods for international consumption are produced in Africa. As the Nairobi example demonstrates, what multinational exploitation does exist comes in the form of the infrastructure development which is taking place all over the country and which is on the one hand providing employment to large-scale sections of society but which is at the same time undermining the rights of many hard working people associated to this boom. It’s hard to draw parallels really, informal work tends to be oppressive everywhere and globalisation can be pinpointed as one of the main determinants of demand for cheap labour and hence unfit working conditions. While unions and any form or workers’ associations that battle for their rights are undoubtably necessary, they face an uphill battle when it comes to fighting against large corporations and profit-oriented businessmen who either are the law or have the law in their pockets.
Katy Fentress URB.IM – Nairobi Community Manager
@whatktdoes