Africa Rising at the Barclays Alliance Meeting in Tanzania

The UNI Barclays Alliance meeting took place in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania from the 23rd to the 25th of June 2015, gathering union leaders from Italy, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania as well as UNI Global Union Finance and UNI Africa.
One year after the kick-off meeting in Ghana, the core group of the Alliance took stock of the progress made so far and developed new plans for Alliance and the countries in the second part of the LO-TCO funded initiative.
The General Secretary of TUICO (Tanzania) as well as UNI Finance and UNI Africa emphasized the need for global solidarity in the face of a rather hostile management in some of the African countries, especially in Tanzania where the workers are afraid of victimization when joing the union. The international delegation visited several branches of Barclays in the capital and could grasp the reality while talking to workers about their day to day job as well as their hope for a brighter future. UNI Finance and UNI Africa also managed to hold a meeting with Barclays Human Resource Manager and Barclays ER Manager for Tanzania, to provide support to the local union affiliate TUICO in their organizing effort. The discussion was tense but resulted in several key outcomes including the willingness from both parties to organize regular consultation meetings to improve the quality and effectiveness of social dialogue. The first meeting between TUICO and Barclays Tanzania management is being scheduled to take place on the 3rd of July 2015. Barclays Tanzania also agreed to issue a written letter confirming their openess to having their employees joining the union in accordance with the freedom of association and other rights enshrined in the ILO Convention. TUICO agreed to inform management about the membership forms and follow the step by step process of unionization for collection of fees.
One of the next steps for the Barclays Alliance will be to ask Barclays Africa CEO Maria Ramos to issue a similar "neutrality" letter allowing all the employees working for Barclays in Africa to join freely a union without fear of victimization.
The union leaders also developed country by country organizing plans and a global plan for the Alliance to strengthen the exchange of information between workers across borders and develop joint campaigns. Some of the common issues being faced by workers include the lack fo social dialogue especially in countries that don't have a collective agreement, income inequalities and lack of job security especially for the contractors who often do the same job as permanent workers but without any social rights, unpaid overtime and unlcear procedures for performance development. The team also analyzed the collective agreements that exist between the unions and Barclays management in various countries. In the light of the vary different standards being applied in each place, a consensus emerged on the need to restart the negotiation of a Global Framework Agreement with the company to raise the bar across the board. The union leaders also adopted the Alliance Framework and agreed to set up an interim Coordination Group to foster further collective action from the Alliance, with regular phone calls and meetings with all the members of the Alliance.
Finally, the African leaders thanked FABI and Monica Brugnoli for their support and presence as members of the Barclays Europe Alliance and called for a broader participation from the European leaders at the next Barclays Alliance meeting which will take place in 2016.