If a minister of Labour refuses to pay his workers, no Ugandan can expect a paycheck

I looked down on my leather shoes early one 2018 morning. I thought of dressing up nicely to accompany workers from five abusive flower farms to the ministry of Labour.

Then I had another thought: If the ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development was competent at its work — and if indeed Museveni’s regime had made advances in human rights since Amin’s time as it has long claimed — then it would recognize the rights of slipper-wearers, which comprise a mass constituency of working-class Ugandans.

I stepped decidedly into a modestly worn pair of sandals, flagged down a half-full taxi, and embarked for downtown Kampala like hundreds of thousands of others that morning. Granted a fought-for appointment at 9:00 am, we waited the expected additional hours.

This is the usual arrogance fee that incompetent grandstanding office-bosses routinely impose with complete impunity. When we were finally granted an audience — something we were expected to applaud — I was thrown out of the meeting for wearing secondhand clothes like every other worker in our taxi that morning.

Two additional colleagues were expelled alongside me, for their apparent crime of reporting workplace safety violations and other abuses by employers. Those who remained were subjected to vicious intimidation.

Martin Wandera (otherwise known as the Director of Labour, Employment and Occupational Safety and Health), verbally defiled the workers he was mandated to serve in that meeting.

The formal complaint I lodged over his malfeasance and abuse of office was never addressed, but the workers in the corridors of the ministry joined us in grumbling against his elitism.

None of this was shocking. The disappointment of tens of millions of hustling Ugandans has evolved into a stubborn cynicism toward the ruling party, every public institution now mafia-managed to concentrate power and money against those it pretends to serve. Ugandans expect abuse from the NRM and are unsurprised when they receive it.

But this is a moment to rise above the typical fatigue of living under Museveni’s brand of fascism. The dark irony of a minister of Labour (and a former minister of Defense, moreover!) being assassinated by his own disgruntled worker stands in the historical shadow of colonial legacy.

Organized labour threatened the colonial occupation in Uganda in the middle of the 20th century. Museveni infiltrated and dismantled cooperatives and unions early in his administration and continues to control them by fear and favour. The only question concerns the depths to which Ugandans will allow themselves to suffer abuse before banding together to resist.

Each new low moment like this means the hour is closer. The assassination of May 2 (in the wake of International Workers’ Day, which since the 1880s celebrates the peoples’ worldwide resistance to capitalism and the ruling elite) only unveils a new low for NRM’s hatred of hardworking Ugandans.

Assassination is an inevitable byproduct of the actions of hateful men like Engola who normalize abuse and hatred toward fellow Africans. Those who are armed and have pledged to protect them in exchange for a dehumanizing wage are no exception. Leaders of mafia syndicates should not expect less.

But the expectations of the 99 per cent of Ugandans who comprise the working class are far more important than the expectations of the NRM oligarchy.

If bodyguard Wilson Sabiti cannot expect a paycheck from the country’s minister of Labour, who among us can expect the ministry of Labour to hold any state institution or private sector employer to account for their arrears for our toil? Afande Sabiti’s was an act of self-justice, sought through the means he felt were available to him.

Queries on his violence are irrelevant. It is the systematic violence of the ministry of Labour and the NRM mafia syndicate that must be interrogated, and ultimately resisted. We all know abuse by the NRM runs deep. While some will create excuses for their own oppressors in order to feign a sense of self-preservation, most of us are prepared to be honest about this knowledge of our oppressors’ evil nature.

And we must ensure that such honesty about the NRM and its fragile institutions like the ministry of Labour — built around personality cults to protect the wealthiest against the poor — do not end with mere grumbling.

Our honesty takes truer form when it results in reviving the spirit of independent trade unionism that once unified students, informal workers, contracted workers, women, unemployed people, persons with disabilities and all marginalized groups near and far.

Our honesty takes even truer form when we organize together against big money, neocolonialism and dictatorship to create an economy that works for us and is owned by us.

It is honest and right to organize with fellow workers, to pull together the five or so who are closest to us in the community or workplace and ask together, “What can we do to change these things?”

Those who are ready to embark on this journey can write to me requesting a free digital copy of an East African workers’ unionization manual. However, we choose to resist labour abuse; we can be assured that until we seize the moment, the moment will continue to seize us.

Ambassador Pilipo James is a trade unionist, political strategist, and writer covering social movements across Africa and the world. He can be reached on: phil@beautifultrouble.org