when they take decisive action, it must be that these institutions
are no longer (if they have even been) embedded in the working
masses and as such cannot be considered to be the genuine
spokesmen of the workers.

Workers’ committees are a quite recent innovation in Tan-
zania's industrial relations system, having been created along with
NUTA itself in 1964. TANU branches in industries are an even
7 later phenomenon — in fact not all industries have them even
‘now. As for the workers’ councils, it can justly be said that they
still are in the experimental phase. Not one of the existing councils

has reached the age of eighteen months.

Yet it seems paradoxical that at a time when there is such a
proliferation of institutions for organising the workers there
should be an increase of industrial disputes leading to strikes. The
first six months of 1971 saw an alarming increase of strikes — of-
‘ten lasting only a day or two. The representation of workers’
views and interests is therefore still an unresolved problem.

 

This paper is the result of an exploratory study on one of the in-
stitutions that are supposed to represent the workers. The study
was sponsored by the Dar es Salaam University Students
Organisation (DUSO) 'in co-operation with the Economic
Research Bureau (E.R.B.) and done during the 1971 long
vacation. The topic was ‘Workers' Participation in Tanzania’
which required me, in fact, to investigate the working of the
‘workers’ councils. But then only a handful had been formed, and
the oldest was less than six months old.

I therefore decided to examine the context in which ‘workers’
participation’ can operate in Tanzania. This necessarily sent me
into an examination of the concept and its utilisation in history.
What follows, therefore, is a discussion, first, on the phenomenon
of ‘participation’ in different socio-economic systems.

I start with the participation of workers in the management of
enterprises in capitalist and socialist socio-economic systems. I
‘then preface the discussion on Tanzania with a brief glance of
workers’ participation in an underdeveloped environment

Rather than discuss only the workers’ councils in the Tanzania
section, I chose to examine also the other organisations so as to
set the proper context with which the councils will grow and
mature. [ believe the experience of workers’ committees and

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