In my last piece, I promised concrete examples of what happens when participation is absent from development. A more current example has intervened, so this week’s word is negotiation.
Participation is central to any negotiation. Once a decision is entirely one-sided, there is neither participation nor negotiation — and the effects can be disastrous.
Investopedia defines negotiation as a strategic discussion aimed at resolving a difference in a way that both sides find acceptable. It involves exchanging information and bargaining, with each side presenting its position and seeking a mutually beneficial compromise.
That should be obvious. Yet the recent strike by long-distance bus and lorry drivers shows how little obvious things can matter until a crisis occurs.
The dispute centred on the driving-licence points system, but drivers also raised concerns about licence suspensions, vehicle seizures, road conditions, the Vehicle Tracking System and their working conditions.
After meeting the drivers, Minister for Home Affairs Patrobas Katambi ordered the system’s implementation suspended while the government assesses the concerns with drivers, owners and other stakeholders.
He also said no driver should be treated unfairly while that process continues. That instruction is necessary, but it cannot substitute for a system in which drivers are heard before a dispute becomes a strike.
That is welcome — wisdom after the event, perhaps. The minister has said that a joint process should address the wider questions within 14 days, but consultation must become real negotiation if it is to mean anything.
Not an Order
Drivers say the points system was only the flashpoint. They want discussion not only of points, but also of what they see as LATRA’s one-sided approach, penalties for vehicle faults they say owners should rectify, the conduct of traffic police, and the conditions in which they work.
READ MORE: Drivers’ Strike Disrupts Long-Distance Travel Across Tanzania
A certain district commissioner and their law enforcers need a seminar on the meaning of negotiation. Threats are not negotiation. Removing number plates is not negotiation. Coercion is not negotiation.
Those actions may restore transport for the moment, but they prepare the ground for a larger crisis. This is not the first time drivers have stopped work only to meet promises on one hand and coercion on the other, while their basic demands remain unresolved.
I have said many times that all leaders, including our esteemed law enforcers, should be prohibited from reading the first book of the Bible or the Quran, in which God gives directions and all happens as directed. Problems, I suppose, began only after human beings were created.
Many leaders and law enforcers seem to think they have the same powers as Almighty God. Should we call them Almighty Leaders or Almighty Law Enforcers?
God gave us two ears and one mouth because listening is twice as important as issuing directives, yet they far prefer directing to listening.
It is good that the bosses have now been compelled to listen to drivers. But why did the drivers have to strike again before the first principle of negotiation was recognised?
A strike is a last resort. Workers take it when they believe that other options have failed because nobody will listen or negotiate — or because earlier “negotiations” ended in unfulfilled commitments.
READ MORE: Development From Below? This Is the Story of a Daladala Co-op in Dar es Salaam
To repeat: negotiation involves exchanging information and bargaining, in which both parties present their positions and seek mutually beneficial compromises.
The current dispute has an older history. In 2015, drivers struck over welfare and formal employment contracts; reporting at the time recorded complaints about pay, allowances, leave, healthcare and vehicle-owner faults being placed on drivers. The lesson should be that a committee or a promise is not the end of negotiation.
Drivers are key to the economy. They move passengers, agricultural produce, manufactured goods and freight across the country and the region, yet their role is too often recognised only when transport stops.
The risk below
It is now clear that the points system was only the point of flash. Drivers have deeper grievances, and the negotiation should extend to the transport sector as a whole.
If drivers are being treated as casual labourers without contracts, medical cover or the rights that workers should enjoy, then owners and regulators are failing the test of participation and negotiation. Tanzania’s laws provide for written employment particulars, access to health insurance and employment standards; it should matter to drivers as much as to any other worker.
Drivers’ concerns over contracts and conditions are not new. Reporting on the 2015 nationwide drivers’ strike recorded demands for formal employment contracts covering pay, allowances, leave, healthcare and other entitlements, as well as complaints that vehicle-owner faults were being placed on drivers’ shoulders.
Those reports cannot prove every account made by drivers today, but they show that the present complaints did not appear overnight. Once an exploitative system is in place, it is difficult for one owner to depart from it while others continue to benefit.
The government should protect workers’ rights according to the law. If passengers enjoy lower fares because workers are mistreated, then, in some sense, we too are complicit. Should we not be standing up for workers’ rights as well?
The same applies to complaints that drivers are penalised for faulty vehicles or worn tyres, although the vehicles belong to owners. I do not know how widespread the practice is, but I have heard of drivers who report a fault only to be told to continue driving anyway.
That makes drivers vulnerable to fines far beyond the small amounts they receive as labourers. It also endangers drivers and passengers; if a vehicle is seriously faulty, it should not be allowed to continue, and the owner should immediately provide alternative transport.
I am not claiming that drivers are modern-day saints. There are plenty of examples of bad driving, but some of that may also be connected to pressure from employers.
I like to imagine a driver telling their boss: “Boss, you know I care deeply about the lives of our passengers, so I will never go above the speed limit anywhere.” I leave it to the reader to imagine the reply — and perhaps the response of passengers who want to be first at their destination.
The driver can be pressured to take risks and break the law, then blamed for doing precisely that. I see no negotiation there.
Beyond the crisis
What is needed is not merely emergency discussion to get buses and lorries back on the road. It is a deeper negotiation to realign the transport system.
READ MORE: Twelve Killed in Singida Crash as Fatal Collisions Renew Calls for Safer Roads
First, government and drivers need an open and transparent process around a regulatory system that drivers see as penalising them while failing to hold owners properly to account. A regulator must ensure safe transport for passengers and other users, but safety cannot be built on one-sided pontification and penalisation.
That process must examine the points system, vehicle-owner responsibilities, driver training, the Vehicle Tracking System, road conditions and the conduct of traffic police. It should not treat one part of the problem as if it were the whole transport system.
Second, owners and drivers need enforceable employment arrangements that uphold drivers’ rights. The drivers’ perception that powerful political figures are among bus owners must also be addressed through clear, impartial enforcement, so that public policy is not seen as serving the interests of those with power and capital.
Passengers also have a stake in this. We want affordable fares and reliable journeys, but convenience should not be built on the deprivation of other people’s rights or on pressure that makes safe driving harder.
There is a history of commitments made during earlier transport crises and left unfulfilled. Negotiation is not merely a discussion in a crisis that ends with an agreement; it is a commitment to carry out what has been agreed.
Empty promises are not negotiation. Law enforcers should be ensuring that agreements are implemented by owners and government institutions, rather than simply cracking down on the labourers.
I know this may sound utopian, given the power imbalance and the class interests involved. But this crisis should warn us that business as usual, to the benefit of business owners, is a recipe for future disaster.
The government has said drivers’ concerns will be included in discussions with relevant ministries and institutions, including those responsible for works, home affairs, labour and employment. It has called for patience while it works towards decisions within 14 days; those decisions will show whether the promised process is consultation only, or negotiation in earnest.
Richard Mabala is an educator, poet, and author. He is available at rmabala@yahoo.com or on X as @MabalaMakengeza. The opinions expressed here are the writer’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of The Chanzo. If you are interested in publishing in this space, please contact our editors at editor@thechan
