The General Manager had been a former key man in NUTA
before joining the Mill. This had given him good experience of
handling workers. Thus his position as the Council’s Chairman
has contributed much to the smooth-running of the meetings.
W hen opening both meetings, he stressed the need for meaningful
workers’ participation in socialist Tanzania and also emphasised
the need for workers' education to make the workers understand
the new challenge the Circular throws to them.

Although the general atmosphere of the meetings was cordial,
one could detect a feeling of mutual suspicion between the
management and the workers in the first meeting. There was that
feeling of ‘we’ against ‘they’ with the management on the one
hand trying to convince the workers’ representatives with their
arguments, and the workers’ representatives on the other trying to
challenge the management. In the second meeting, the atmosphere
was much more improved.

THE LEVEL OF PARTICIPATION IN THE
DISCUSSION

The degree of participation in the Council is an important
measuring rod of workers’ ability to participate. In the case of
Friendship Textile Mill, participation by workers’ representatives
revealed several interesting things. In the first meeting the workers
representatives were more interested in demanding more powers.
They demanded, for example, that the Workers’ Council should
have powers even to appoint the personnel and senior officials of
the Mill. The members from the workers’ side felt that the
Workers' Council did not have enough powers. They suggested
that the Workers' Council instead of having only advisory powers
should be the final institution in so far as decision-making is con-
cerned. Besides demands for more workers’ power, the workers’
representatives in the first meeting were also interested in
discussing matters relating to the workers’ social and material
welfare. Lengthy debates on demands of wages, salaries, fringe
benefits and promotions were common. Quite often, there was a
tendency for some members of the council to indulge in debates
which pertained to areas of the Workers' Committee. The
workers’ representatives could not therefore distinguish quite
clearly the differences in function between the Workers’ Council
and the Workers’ Committee. In other matters relating to plan-

243