The trade union movement is growing in yeti country 1/11/1999

The trade union movement is growing in yeti country Perched on the peaks of the Himalayas, Nepal faces a very difficult social situation: child labour, debt slavery, under-employment, etc. The trade unions are trying to make a place for themselves in this youthful democracy.

Nepal is soon to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the advent of democracy. In April 1990, the King, who had been reigning absolute for 30 years, gave in to popular pressure and lifted the ban on political parties, adopting for himself a role strictly limited by the Constitution. The free trade unions could come out into the open after the severe repression they had suffered during the absolute monarchy. A whole series of workers' organisations were established, including the two main bodies, the NTUC (Nepal Trade Union Congress, close to the Congress Party, and affiliated to the ICFTU), and the GEFONT (General Federation of Nepalese Trade Unions), which adopts a more or less Communist line but which is open to members of other persuasions. These two movements claim to have a number of members that is as impressive (because they started from nothing) as it is impossible to check (since there are no reliable statistics in Nepal): 200,000 for the NTUC and 300,000 for the GEFONT. "However, we would be closer to reality if we halved these numbers", is the view of a neutral observer, Dev Raj Dahal, of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES).Apart from the numerical controversy, all the Nepalese trade unions recognise that the great majority of their members are in the formal sector, whereas 80 to 90% of people work in the informal sector. Thus they share the difficulties of their comrades throughout the world when it comes to awakening the interest of the non-structured working world. The approach is all the harder when it comes to workers who are prisoners of "debt slavery" (1), at the mercy of unscrupulous bosses. The GEFONT makes great efforts to help these people. "It is difficult to get in contact with them because they work 18 hours a day all week", explains Bishnu Rimal, secretary-general of the GEFONT. "Our militants visit them where they sleep, around midnight, to tell them about the "Forum for Liberation from Debt Slavery" that we have founded. It is very hard to convince them of the usefulness of a trade union, but 10,000 of them have become members, and they pay a nominal annual fee of one rupee (0.015$). We also run awareness campaigns in Nepalese society, we organise demonstrations in the fields, we take the bosses to court if they beat or falsely accuse their slaves, etc. We ask the landowners to free their creditors unconditionally from their debts in order to be considered honoured citizens of this country. In the last few months, we have managed to free 13 slaves in this way. This may not be much, but it encourages us to keep working".

A trade union that helps children The NTUC wages a courageous war against another scourge of Nepalese society, namely, child labour. On the slopes of Mount Everest, 41.7% of minors aged from 5 to 14 work. This proportion represents 2.5 million children, 1 million of whom do not attend any school (2). A large majority of them receive no salary. The NTUC, affiliated to the ICFTU, has been struggling ever since the advent of democracy to provide schooling for the largest possible number of children. With the help of funds from the ILO, from Japanese donors and the Nepalese government, the NTUC has opened 132 schools in which the children of poor families can receive free remedial courses over a period of nine months. They receive without charge all the school materials they need. "One of our aims is to avoid their still having to walk for miles to the nearest school", declares the NTUC chairman, Laxman Basnet. "They come to school for two and a half hours, in the morning or the evening, and then go back home, where they may have to help their parents. Our idea is not to replace public schools, but to give children who have had practically no schooling until now a chance to follow remedial courses". At the present time, 6,000 young people are following these courses, and the NTUC observes that, on average, 50% of them continue their education in a government school once the nine months are up. The trade union is also concerned about the parents of these children, and it helps them to increase their revenue (by better production techniques for the objects they sell, etc.) or else it enables them to benefit from vocational training programmes.

Apart from these social activities, the Nepalese trade unions face a major credibility gap in public opinion. The press tends to mention them only when they organise strikes, several of which are very unpopular, for example, those affecting public transport. The unions have been devoting a great deal of effort to trying to persuade the public of the genuine need for union activities ever since 1990, but have not been very successful so far. Nor are members very committed to their unions: militants transfer from one organisation to another according to the fluctuations in the results of parliamentary elections or following the kaleidoscopic re-shufflings in the government coalition parties. In Nepal, as in many other countries, it is preferable to be on the side of the government if one wishes to obtain advantages. However, the composition of the Nepalese government is an endless game of musical chairs: since 1990, the Katmandu government has seen a succession of at least eight different coalitions! Each change entails the nomination of new managements for the public undertakings, and this explains why the NTUC chairman has stated his preference for the privatisation process that is at currently under way: "This is because, at present, the priority of each new managerial team is to fill their pockets before they leave".

Respect for the freedom of trade unions, up to a point….The return of democracy may well have led to an unstable power structure, but it has at least had the advantage of permitting the trade unions to work freely. At present, there are no Nepalese citizens in prison for exercising their rights to freely undertake trade union activities. Nevertheless, bosses who want to get rid of a militant they consider to be too much of a nuisance have other cards they can play: "All they have to do is to accuse someone of being a Maoist, and the police arrest him", declares Bishnu Rimal. The Nepalese Maoists are a small terrorist group demanding the abolition of the constitutional monarchy. Their struggle against the powers that be has already led to the death of around 1,000 people. The terror they inspire is so great that the police will not hesitate to arrest anyone suspected of being part of the group - all the more so if he is denounced by a generous and widely respected industrialist.

The deep divisions between the main Nepalese trade unions are a major handicap when they make their demands. The FES has had to use all its diplomatic skills to get the leaders of the different organisations to accept to sit round one table and then to start talking. Nevertheless, a common front on the national level is hardly realistic at the moment, particularly since collective negotiations nearly always occur within individual companies. Only the minimum salary (1,800 rupees = 25 $) is set at the national level. There is also good labour legislation, but its application is far from perfect. "The trade unionists in the companies are not very well informed about their rights, and the labour inspectors are very overworked and quite open to corruption", explains Dev Raj Dahal of the FES. "A certain number of trade union militants receive training, but employees are always changing jobs in the present situation and these efforts are sometimes to no avail. Cases concerning the world of work are brought before the courts, but there too the judges are under-informed about the laws, they have little experience and they almost never meet the trade unions."

Of course, it is very difficult to establish a viable democracy in a country where it has never existed before. Nepal has been working at this task for nine years now, but progress is slow in a society still dominated by the caste system, an ever-present informal sector and a limited industrial fabric. Underemployment affects around half the population between the two main seasons of farm work, that is sowing and harvesting. Thousands of men, women and sometimes children then cross the Indian border in an optimistic search for prosperity in vast cities such as Delhi or Bombay, with the well-known risk of being caught up in the networks of slavery or prostitution. This can only reinforce the urgency of one of the main demands of the Nepalese trade unions: that the government adopt policies to promote employment.
Written by Samuel Grumiau