Workers' Participation in Management in Tanzania

Abstract

The policy decision to involve workers in the management of enterprises in Tanzania was made and announced in February 1970 in the form of Presidential Directive.1 Even now the entire programme is based on the implementation of this Directive. The Circular directs, among other things, that "every public corporation or firm employing more than ten workers is to establish a workers' council." The Security of Employment Act of 1964 had established "workers' committees", but these appear to have been established primarily to defend the employee as a worker. The workers' committees dealt, for example, with such matters as conditions of service, warnings and dismissals. The establishment of workers' councils, however, was aimed at enhancing the worker's role in management. It directed the public corporations and firms to reorganize their executive committees and boards of directors in such a way as to give practical effect to workers' representation and participation in planning, productivity, quality and marketing matters. In this article we shall first discuss the concept of workers' participation ,jn its hiSitorkaJ context. We shalt rhen examine the application of the principle of participation in independent Tanzania.