PARTICIPATION IN THE WORKERS' COUNCIL
MEETING

Like Friendship Textile Mill the Workers’ Council meeting
was conducted very well. Much credit is due to the understanding
nature of the then General Manager, Mr. Batty, an expatriate, and
the Personnel Manager Mr. Mwanjesa. The meeting lasted for
three days and thus enough time was given to the issues
discussed. However, the problem that arose was that of language.
The whole meeting was conducted in English. An interpreter had
to translate the speeches in both Swahili and English. This made
the meeting take more time than might have been necessary. The
reason for the use of the English language as a medium was that
most of the management including the Chairman of the W orkers’
Council do not know Swahili. In the discussion itself, there was
equal share between the management and the rest of the Workers’
Council members. The workers’ representatives felt that they had
a fair share. Their active participation could be explained as
having been due to the absence of complex matters which might
have baffled the common workers’ representatives. All the issues
discussed were those that the workers had proposed. Like Friend-
ship Textile Mill most of the workers’ representatives could not
distinguish the function of the two organs — the Workers’ Coun-
cil and the Workers’ Committee Issues on matters like dismissals
of workers were raised which in fact are within the realm of
Workers’ Committee. Many times the members had to be
cautioned not to discuss irrelevant issues. In spite of these
problems, the workers' representatives were happy at the way
they participated in the discussion. At the time I finished my
research I could not know the Board of Directors’ views on the
decisions passed by the Workers’ Council meeting. Thus [ am not
able to say whether the deliberations of the Workers’ Council
were accepted by the Board of Directors or not.

THE ORDINARY WORKERS AND PARTICI-
PATION

Participation by the rank and file workers in TANESCO Head
Office revealed interesting things. The labour of TANESCO Head

Office varies from the white collar workers to the blue collar
workers. The response from most of the white collar workers I

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