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Zaire Labor
Employment statistics are considered extremely
unreliable
because the national agency responsible for their
collection, the
National Institute for Social Security, has limited
resources. The
latest available published figures from 1984 showed 1.1
million
employed in the official economy out of an employable
population of
about 15 million. A breakdown of the persons employed had
almost
800,000 workers in the private sector and the remaining
300,000
employed in public administration. Teaching was the
largest single
component in the public sector with 200,000 employees, and
the
mining conglomerate Gécamines was the largest single
corporate
employer with a work force of roughly 37,000.
Skilled industrial labor was in short supply and often
workers
had to be trained by individual companies. Salaries were
generally
low, but employers were required to provide a variety of
benefits,
including medical care, family allowances, transportation,
and
sometimes housing and subsidized food. Termination of an
employee
was a difficult procedure.
Incomplete statistics make detailed analysis of
employment
patterns difficult, but several generalizations can
nevertheless be
made. A large part of the population stands outside the
formal
economy and ekes out a living by subsistence farming,
informal
trade or barter, or smuggling and other illicit
activities. Women
are severely underrepresented in the formal economy; by
some
estimates, only 4 percent of formal-sector employees are
women. As
a result, they have recourse in large numbers to the
informal
economy.
Although the population rose from 16.2 million in 1960
to 34
million in 1989 and to 39.1 million by 1992, total
formal-sector
employment remained about the same in the early 1990s as
at
independence; increases in the labor force were probably
absorbed
by an increase in the number of subsistence farmers. A
lack of new
jobs in urban areas would imply a high urban unemployment
for the
growing populations of the cities (Kinshasa alone added 2
million
inhabitants from 1960 to 1984). One estimate placed
unemployment in
the mid-1980s at 40 percent for Kinshasa and as high as 80
percent
for other cities. Only mining towns had unemployment at
lower
figures.
The government encouraged foreign employers to minimize
the
number of expatriate employees. As an investment matured,
the
number of foreign workers was expected to diminish. The
government
controlled foreign labor through a tax on expatriate
salaries and
issuance of work and residence permits.
The National Union of Zairian Workers (Union Nationale
des
Travailleurs Zaïrois--UNTZA), the country's only official
trade
union until mid-1990 when independent trade unions were
legalized,
was in reality a branch of the MPR
(see Interest
Groups
, ch. 4).
UNTZA employed 1,000 full-time staff members and claimed
to
represent all Zairian workers. Disputes were settled by a
government order that labor and management agree to
settlements
that were usually compromises between their respective
demands.
Union militancy was rare. UNTZA rarely, if ever, called
strikes.
Any work disruptions that occurred were outside the
context of the
union.
Mobutu's April 1990 announcement that the country would
make a
transition to a pluralistic, multiparty political system
ended
UNTZA's role as the nation's sole trade union, although it
remained
the most influential union in the early 1990s.
Subsequently, some
twelve trade unions sprang up, all officially recognized
by the
government, representing various political constituencies,
political parties, and industrial sectors. To protest low
wages,
trade union pluralism led to more frequent strikes as well
as other
demonstrations against the government. By 1992, for
example, the
public-service system had virtually ceased to function.
Most public
employees, including hospital workers and teachers, were
on strike
to protest lack of payment by the bankrupt government.
Data as of December 1993
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