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Angola LABOR FORCE
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Semiskilled laborers work in a plastics factory.
Before independence the economy employed a labor force
of
unskilled Angolans and trained Portuguese. Since
independence there
has been little change in the overall composition of the
work
force, although in the 1980s there was a shortage of both
skilled
and unskilled workers. Most foreign workers fled the
country at
independence, but some have returned as contract workers,
called
cooperants by the government. Many unskilled
workers in the
rural areas--primarily plantation laborers--migrated to
the cities
in the wake of the 1975-76 fighting and the exodus of the
plantation owners and managers. In the 1980s, most of the
work
force, even in the cities, remained illiterate and
untrained for
work in the manufacturing sector. By 1980 the labor force
still
conformed to its preindependence distribution: roughly 75
percent
of all workers were engaged in agricultural production, 10
percent
in industry, and 15 percent in services.
Calling itself a socialist workers state, Angola was
committed
to protecting the rights of its workers and providing them
with a
reasonable wage. In the 1980s, all workers therefore
belonged to
the National Union of Angolan Workers (União Nacional dos
Trabalhadores Angolanos--UNTA) and received a minimum
wage. In
addition, there were incentive programs at some factories,
and UNTA
promoted a "socialist emulation" program in which workers
won
bonuses for exceptional productivity. Nevertheless, the
government
has become dissatisfied with worker productivity,
especially at the
state-run enterprises, and has proposed to tie all wages
to
performance.
Foreign workers have also posed a problem for the
government
because of their high salaries and because they contradict
the
party's ideological commitment to the use of Angolan
labor. The
government, however, was forced to use foreign workers in
many
crucial positions after the departure of the Portuguese.
These
positions included those held by physicians, teachers,
engineers,
and technicians. Most came from Portugal, Cuba, Eastern
Europe,
Italy, France, Spain, Scandinavia, and Brazil. By 1984 the
salaries
of these foreign workers accounted for more than US$180
million,
despite government attempts to force a reduction in this
work
force.
In pursuit of Angolanization (that is, the goal of
having an
upper-level work force that is at least 50 percent
Angolan), in
1985 the government began initiating some training
programs. In
November of that year, it reached agreement with the
German
Democratic Republic (East Germany) on a training program
for
Angolan financial analysts. The greatest success occurred
in the
petroleum sector, however, in which by the end of 1985
more than 50
percent of the workers were Angolans with some technical
training.
This success was the result of actions taken by the
government and
the National Fuel Company of Angola (Sociedade Nacional de
Combustíveis de Angola--Sonangol), which employed about
half of the
workers in the petroleum industry, to substitute Angolans
for
foreign workers. The 1982 Angolanization law (Decree
20/82)
established a special fund for training activities.
Consequently,
intensive training courses and seminars in the petroleum
field
increased from 66 in 1982 to 151 in 1985. Sonangol
participated in
financing various training efforts, including scholarship
grants.
Furthermore, Sonangol closely cooperated with Angolan
universities
to introduce fields of study related to the petroleum
industry. In
the early 1980s, two training programs, one for geologists
and
geophysicists and the other for petroleum engineers, were
instituted in the schools of science and engineering at
the
University of Angola. At the same time, the university's
school of
engineering began an equipment engineer training program.
The
training of middle-level technicians was undertaken by the
National
Petroleum Institute, at Sumbe in Cuanza Sul Province; the
institute's teachers and administrators were
cooperants from
Italy
(see
fig. 1). The institute trained between fifty
and sixty
production specialists per year, some of whom were from
countries
belonging to the Southern Africa Development and
Coordination
Conference (SADCC).
By the beginning of 1986, the government claimed some
success
in its Angolanization program. According to the minister
of
industry, 44 percent of senior-level and middle-level
management in
industry were Angolans. Nevertheless, after the drop in
oil prices
in 1986, the government sought to reduce the number of
foreign
workers even further and enacted the Statute on the
Cooperant
Worker. This law established the principle that
cooperants
must train Angolan workers in their jobs and pay taxes
based on
Angolan labor regulations. To increase the ranks of
Angolan
workers, the government even encouraged the return of
Angolan
exiles who had formerly opposed the MPLA. These included
former
members of the National Front for the Liberation of Angola
(Frente
Nacional de Libertação de Angola--FNLA), the Organization
of
Angolan Communists (Organização dos Comunistas de
Angola--OCA), and
UNITA
(see Political Opposition
, ch. 4). The response to
this
encouragement has been somewhat meager, however, because
of
Angola's ongoing instability.
Data as of February 1989
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