News

BARCLAYS Bank has agreed to allow UNI affiliate the Tanzania Union of Industrial and Commercial (TUICO) to organize its employees.

This follows constant pressure from UNI, the global union and its affiliates, who have been urging Barclays to respect union rights in Tanzania. UNI is currently supporting an organising campaign in Barclays Tanzania.

Barclays / ABSA Head of Employee Relations Thomas Mashaba recently assured a Pan-African meeting of finance unions in Johannesburg that obstacles towards union organising in Tanzania have been resolved and TUICO was free to start recruitment.

The Barclays representative said local management had already written to TUICO inviting them for talks.

Speaking early at the same meeting, TUICO Deputy General Secretary Alquin Senga appealed for solidarity to force Barclays "to open doors to union organizing in Tanzania."

Senga expressed concern over Barclays' willingness to recognise staff associations instead of registered trade unions. "Barclays wants to show an image outside that they are friendly to unions, yet they seem to have an inside arrangement to lock out unions through the use of staff associations. They are giving managers an advantage over unions," he said.

Barclays has been refusing TUICO to organise its 183 workers in Tanzania. Yet Barclays' subsidiary, the Amalgamated Bank of South Africa (ABSA), which is in a joint venture with the National Bank of Commerce (NBC - Tanzania) is already unionised by TUICO.