News

Dear colleagues and comrades from the Barclays Africa Alliance,

When we met in Ghana in July, with a highly committed team of union leaders who came from 7 countries across Africa, we shared a lot of ideas, energy and enthusiasm and we made each other a promise: when coming back to our home country, we will do our best to organize the Barclays workers, strengthen the unions and their negotiating power with the company.

We have some good news to share with all of you. This promise is starting to be fulfilled.

Here is  a short update about the progress being made since July.

In Botswana, the comrades in BOBEU have completed an organising plan for the next year which includes strengthening their union by building both participation and membership with the key goal of forcing the company to agree to include temporary workers in their collective bargaining agreement.  To prepare for the campaign they have an organising training scheduled for Nov 6/7 where they will involve 20 to 30 activists from branches around the country.

In Zimbabwe, the comrades of ZIBAWU have completed an organising plan for the next year along with a proposed budget for an organising training to be held Oct31/Nov 1 and to involve Barclays worker activists from all around the country.  The focus of their campaign is to drive to 90% membership and to identify and recruit additional leaders in all work areas; to begin that, comrades have completed a first round of mapping all branches and locations and are identifying key issues among co-workers.  

In Uganda, the comrades of NUCCPTE have begun strategising about their plan, having held one conference call to talk through the challenges and potential strategies to begin their organising work; the first step of their plan is to identify 15 activists from around the country who can participate in an organising training the last week in November; the goal of the plan to get to 50% membership so they can win formal recognition and collective bargaining from the employer.  The comrades are still working to finalise their plan and propose a budget for the training.  

In Tanzania, the comrades of TUICO have submitted a first draft of their plan and had a call to discuss and receive feedback.   They and have just recently submitted a proposed budget for review and we are waiting to receive their final organising plan with any modifications.  We are hoping to plan an organising training for January in Tanzania but have not confirmed or finalised dates yet.  The overall plan is focused on rebuilding the membership from its current 10% to over 50% so that we can win collective bargaining and take on issues around employment security and low remuneration compared with other banks. 

Congratulations to all the comrades who are working hard in these 4 countries to make a real change in the life of Barclays Africa workers.

We will be in touch again over the course of the year until we meet again in July 2015.

We are developing the Terms of Reference of the Global Alliance which will share with the Barclays Africa and Barclays Europe teams in the next couple of weeks.

Please feel free to get in touch with myself or Jesse, Elise and Aminata if you have any question or update to share from your country.

Joe Kokela, President UNI Africa Finance