News

Trade unions in West Africa representing workers in the Media indutry - both journalists and technical staff - met in Abidjan Cote D `Ivoire last week to draw up their Organising Strategies for union expansion in this growing sector. Unions came from Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon to meet unions in Cote D `Ivoire at  a conference funded and organised by FES and the Africa Region. UNI SCORE provided the workshop input.

The key questions for the unions revolve around lack of union power and low wages. There is also an issue of the lack of involvement of women in the unions in a sector where women are a high proportion of the workforce.

Workshops were held on strategy, on organising techniques, on resources and on campaigning strategies. All 7 unions present agreed that the workshops had been incredibly helpful and each union presented its plan for the next 12 months. UNI SCORE and UNI Africa are committed to supporting these campaigns with further workshops and startegy support and advice. But as always the key to any union growth lies in the union leadership finding and working with new activists - a point rehearsed and worked on in the workshops.

There will be follow up work with UNI over the next 12 months including a review workshop in Nigeria and Ghana.