The trade union leaders from across the African continent are coming together to meet in Dakar, Senegal for 4th UNI Africa Regional Conference on March 23-25, 2017. This will be a gathering of 161 Unions from 40 African countries and roughly 500 participants will be attending it, along with invited guests from across the world. We will be presenting at the conference and sharing some of the findings from our ongoing research on business process outsourcing in various African countries.
This conference is calling for an inclusive growth agenda in new Africa. It aims to help unions mobilise and organise workers and to win collective bargaining rights to ensure that their basic rights are protected and they ultimately benefit from the rapidly changing economic landscape on the continent.
We have put together a short PDF document, which we will be sharing with the delegates at the conference. The poster highlights how call and contact centre work (one of the segments of outsourcing) impacts workers in South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria and the role unions can play in addressing them.
Some key takeaways for trade unions across Africa are that they need to radically transform their image in order to organise workers in the new economy sectors such as business process outsourcing. Unions need to appeal to workers that through collective bargaining and collective action can workers have better future. Finally, we also encourage greater engagement among unions, governments and private sector which has the welfare of workers at its heart.
To access and cite this document:
Anwar, M. A. and Graham, M. 2017. Call and Contact Centre Workers and the Role of Labour Unions in Africa, Conference presentation, 4th UNI Africa Conference, Dakar Senegal, March 25, 2017.
This research project is examining the geographies, drivers, and effects of Sub-Saharan Africa's emerging information economies at a time of changing connectivity and Internet access across the region.
