Strike, or grève in French, is a well used tool across Africa. Teachers, taxi drivers and even doctors often go on strike to protest their poor (and many times unpaid) wages. Of all the countries I've visited, Cote d'Ivoire has had the most prolific and successful strike campaigns (although they don't make the World's Most Powerful Labor Unions list,) even their military was able to go on strike (although it's called mutiny when the military does it- they have weapons) and receive the back compensation that had been promised.
The trick to a good strike is numbers (or guns, I suppose.) I don't know much- in terms of actual facts- about the US Labor movement, but, like many Americans, I have been imbued by the legends of labor and tales of power and violence involved with the fight for worker's rights. A scan through the AFL historical timeline shows that strikers went through some intense moments and a lot of sacrifice was involved (from the Molly Macguires to the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters to the Farm Workers Committee. Martin Luther King, Jr was assassinated at a striker's meeting of sanitation workers.)
Workers' situations in Africa are not so far from many of the complaints presented by these groups. There is often little regulation for safety, and when in place, it is easily ignored. People work long hours for pay that is barely able to support themselves or their families. Often, especially when the government is responsible for the salary, they are not paid for months or years.
Shortly after I arrived in Bamako, bankers went on strike. They announced a three day strike and had nearly 90% of workers comply. Banks were closed. Period. The security guard strike these past few weeks has gone a little differently.
A search for news about the guard strike didn't turn up much. I found strikes by the Syndicate National des Travailleurs, Teacher's Strike, Transportation Strike, and the Customs and Imports Strike, all in 2017. RFI had this to say about the apparently illegal strike. The article suggests the guards want an increased risk premium of 40,000 (per month? Or just once? It's not clear to me. But it's true that, especially in this climate, they are often at the front lines of the most dangerous places.) I've heard they currently make anything from 50-70,000. I'd also heard that once the cap is reached, you never surpass it, no matter how many years you've been working for the company. This article explains it a bit better, suggesting that there was an agreement reached in the past but never respected. It also confirms the salary at 75,000 per month and states unequivocally that the guards feel they are being "treated like slaves." The 3 major points of the strike are more clearly outlined here and sound completely reasonable. This article includes some of the salaries and hours of guards in neighboring countries (much more for shorter hours.)
I had never even given thought to what happens in the case of
an intruder or a theft. If there is a theft and the guard is on duty, it
is surely he who bears the responsibility (and suspicion.) If an
intruder is injured, again, the guard will have to deal with the
consequences, apparently without the support of the company. They are
unarmed men guarding the most luxurious businesses and homes in Bamako.
It's dangerous work. And it's not comfortable.
Just to put it in perspective, many guards work for 12 or more hours. They sleep outside, in garages, or on cots on the side of the street. (I guess technically they aren't supposed to be sleeping, but let's face it, the hours are too long to reasonably expect someone to stay awake.) They cook their food over little charcoal stoves set in driveways or patches of dirt just outside the business or home they are guarding. My nanny gets 100,000 per month to work 6 hour days in the comfort of an inside atmosphere. She goes home to sleep at night. And apparently I am on the low side of the payment salary (hence the loss of two previous nannies who decided it was better to quit than work for my low salary.)
G4S is an international security company headquartered in London and working in Mali since 2007. They are no strangers to conflict. And it seems like they have a sufficient number of quality contracts to pay their employees a livable wage. I often make the mistake of thinking it is a respectable job. The workers have uniforms and they keep steady hours. They work for high profile organizations. It seems like a job that should be able to support a family.
The workers aren't feeling it and on December 31, many abandoned their posts. They left houses unguarded, locking doors and throwing the keys.....and some not even bothering with that. The general maintenance manager at our school expressed his surprise that some of the guards left the school in the middle of the night. "At least," he thought, "they could have waited until the daylight."
But this is the gray area of hiring a company and then expecting loyalty from the guards themselves. If you are not paying their salary direct, you can't really have an expectation of loyalty. They need to eat. The main problem with the strike was that not all guards participated. While it was nice to still see a few familiar faces, it was completely ineffective in terms of achieving the guards' main objective.
What it meant for customers, after the initial abandoning of the post, was that strangers showed up for duty. I had men I didn't know coming into my yard to "guard" the house. They didn't know who I was, who else lived or worked in the house and who should be allowed in or kept out. Some asked my name before letting me in, others just swung the door open at the site of a white woman. I have no idea how easy- or hard- it was for the nanny to get in.
While the initial strike was to last 3 days, the demands weren't meant and so it was extended. Again, the main problem here is that all of the posts were filled with new guards. (I wonder where these guards came from and what, if any, training they received. Many of the new guards have beautifully young faces. Are they even old enough to be guarding...?)
A strike can hardly be effective if there is a slew of new people just waiting to fill the shoes. There is a long history of violence associated with US unions, whether in the form of threats and harassment to employers, scabs or beatings and even murder of strikebreakers. It's serious stuff.
Which is why I was surprised to hear how some of the still working guards talked about the strike. They acknowledged that those who were striking were taking a risk, and that anything they achieved would benefit all of the workers. They also struggled with the need to feed families and manage financial obligations. In the US, there are rules and regulations about how to keep working during a strike. Other countries have a longer history of unions and, one might imagine, developed effective ways of managing the to-strike-or-not-to-strike question.
It seems clear there is a need for change. Malians deserve access to jobs that pay a fair wage, offer safe working conditions and allow them to rise out of poverty. These are the tenets most labor unions have been founded on. It is unfortunate that the security guards were unable to achieve an adequate number of unified employees to make their demands heard. Of the 1500 employees, a third of those took part in the strike. I've heard, but cannot confirm, it was announced that all those striking lost their jobs, nearly 500 people. Dismissed.
Of course, that means 500 new people are now employed. It's generally not the best outcome for a strike.
