Although the trade union movement officially continued to be a
bread-and-butter organisation with no explicit political objectives,
yet in fact it worked closely with the nationalist movement. Con-
stantly the trade union movement launched economic struggles
which in essence were political, in so far as they were meant to
weaken the strength of the government vis-a-vis the nationalist
movement. Between 1954 and 1960 on the eve of independence,
strikes in the country increased from 40 to over 700, the number
of workers involved from 4.6 to 89.5 thousand, and man days lost
as a result of the strikes from 7.8 thousand to 1.5 million."!

This working class activity was generalised by the fact of
organisation. It now encompassed practically all sections of the
wage-labour force. Dock-workers and railwaymen continued to be
important in this respect, but now almost every sector of em-
ployees participated in one way or another in the joint effort: civil
servants, local government workers, hotel and domestic workers,
etc., following the structure of the trade union organisation. Most
important of all, at this juncture the plantation workers became
extremely instrumental occupying as they did the nerve-centre of
the country’s colonial economy.

In short, then, the workers played a key role in the nationalist
movement which was demanding independence because of their
strategic position in the economy, and because their role in the
production process made it easy for them to grasp the primacy of
politics in trying to solve socio-economic contradictions.

In the sixties, however, things changed quite dramatically. That
decade was characterised generally by extreme control and sub-
jugation of the workers by the new government which inherited
the reins of political power from the departing colonialists.

To begin with, the first few months of independence saw in-
creases of strikes all-over the country. In part, this was merely a
continuation of the events of the earlier decade; in part also, this
resulted from a new battle of elements within the middle class
jockeying each other up for power and the fruits of independence.
Generally, in Africa the coming of independence marked the end
of the alliance between, on the one hand the petty bourgeoisie and
on the other the workers and peasants, which had been formed in
order to wage the struggle for political independence. The basis
for that alliance was eroded by the act of independence, and the
petty bourgeoisie more or less simply walked into the shoes of the

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