Police unionisation bid meets stiff resistance

Police and prison guards are meeting stiff opposition from the government in their attempts to exploit a provision in Swaziland's new constitution, which the security forces say allows them to form trade unions.

Although the Industrial Relations Act bars security force members from joining any organised labour grouping, unionists, with the backing of the International Labour Federation, intend challenging the validity of the legislation in the high court, on the grounds that it conflicts with the rights of workers under a constitution signed into law last year by absolute monarch King Mswati III.

"The Industrial Relations Act bars the Labour Commissioner from registering a group of people from the security forces as a union," a leader in the unionisation effort, Alpheous Mhlanga, told a press conference recently. "We hope and trust that the High Court would uphold the supreme law of the land and put aside the outdated Industrial Relations Act, which completely prevents us from forming a union as workers."

Resistance by the top echelons of the Royal Swaziland Police Force to prevent their subordinates from unionising has resulted in Mhlanga, a serving police officer, being put on indefinite suspension and half-pay for professional misconduct by Commissioner of Police Edgar Hillary.

Mhlanga cites provisions in the Constitution's Bill of Rights allowing for workers to form and join trade unions and engage in collective bargaining with their employers, a claim that Commissioner of Labour Jinnoh Nkambule appeared to agree with when he told local media recently, "There are laws that are definitely found wanting in the Constitution [which] by virtue of being the supreme law of the land supersedes any other law that existed before."

Mhlanga said the union, to be called the Swaziland Police Association (SPA), was necessary to address police welfare issues, such as working and living conditions. "We've been through hell for quite a long time, and there is no better time to liberate ourselves than now. We are fighting for our bread and butter."

The new constitution has been criticised as being too liberal by supporters of the country's status quo, and not liberal enough by opponents of government, and has been mired in controversy since it was first proposed in the mid-1990s. According to analysts, the document signed into law by Mswati in early 2006 indirectly legalised political parties by suspending a 1973 royal decree by the then reigning monarch, King Sobhuza II, which had effectively banned them.

Swaziland was granted independence in 1968 from Britain, the former colonial power, and the country had a brief flirtation with a Westminster-style parliamentary democracy, in which political parties contended for power for five years. Sobhuza II overturned the agreed constitution and instituted a state of emergency, still in force, banned opposition political parties and meetings, and assumed ultimate executive, judicial and legislative authority for the monarchy.

SPA representatives have been barred from Swaziland's state-owned radio and television stations, and from putting their case across in the country's second daily newspaper, the Swazi Observer, owned by the royal conglomerate, Tibiyo TakaNgwane.

The banned political party, People's United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), has taken up the unionists' cause, and reportedly assisted Mhlanga in securing an interview to publicise their case with a South African radio station that can also be received in neighbouring Swaziland.

PUDEMO's support for the formation of a union among police ranks has angered the Swazi police hierarchy, which still considers opposition political parties illegal and bans political marches and meetings, including meetings of the SPA.

The SPA has received a letter of support from the International Council of Police Representatives Associations, saying, "All our associations underwent similar struggles during the early part of the last century to establish the right to associate and advocate, and we very much appreciate the difficulties you and your colleagues are facing. Undoubtedly, the police hierarchy and government will be opposed to such a move, as they were in our own countries."

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