The latest celebration of Labour Day calls for a reflection on the fundamental reforms that the labour movement in Kenya has to pay attention to if it is to stay relevant and useful in its struggles for the social transformation of Kenya.

The plight of the prison warders has brought to sharp focus the rights of workers who are not unionised and workers who the organised labour movement does not speak for. The agitation by prison warders also raises a critical legal issue.

The Trade Disputes Act outlaws strikes by workers in essential services, the prison services being one of these services. Does that Act not expect the rights of the workers in essential services not be violated by the State in the first place? If the rights of the warders were violated by the State that refused to pay their legitimate dues, is it not immoral for the same State to criminally charge the leaders of the workers for raising legitimate concerns? Is this not an issue that Cotu should be engaged with? Should we not be saying that in this case of the warders, it is the State that should be in the dock?

THE EMERGENCE OF A VIBRANT governance and democracy component of the civil society since the early 1990s has not been appreciated by the labour movement. Indeed it is arguable that the leadership of the labour movement in Kenya does not understand that trade unions are part of the civil society!

Within the civil society, therefore, trade unions have great allies in the religious organisations, NGOs, social movements such as women and youth movements, community-based and not for profit organisations in the private sectors such as foundations, the private sector alliance, and media groups and any critical citizen's organisations such as the hawkers organisations.

For a start, therefore, trade unions need to know who their potential allies in civil society are. Thereafter, trade unions must, in collaboration with these allies, struggle for the human rights of the workers they are supposed to lead.

The Cotu leadership has failed to take advantage of the important role played by human rights NGOs in not only monitoring, documenting and publicising the violations of the rights of workers, but in also putting back the workers' movement in the mainstream of Kenya's politics.

When the Kenya Human Rights Commission, for example, teamed with the Commercial Food and Allied Workers Union to fight for the rights of workers at Del Monte, the Cotu leadership teamed up with the leadership of the Federation of Kenya Employers to attack the commission. At some point, Cotu secretary-general Francis Atwoli suggested that the commission should be charged under the Trade Unions Act for working as an unregistered trade union!

Cotu did not support the commission when it also protected the human rights of workers in the Export Processing Zones Authority and the flower farms. Cotu clearly did not understand the global economic forces at play in all these campaigns spearheaded by the commission.

Fortunately, however, the commission had the support of the unions it teamed up with in all these campaigns. The commission also received crucial support from the only union that struggles for women's workers rights - the Kenya Women's Workers Organisation (Kewwo).

Recently, during the post-election crisis, we saw Cotu and other trade unions team up with employers and the private sector alliance to make critical statements on the future of the country. The trade union leadership again did not seek the collaboration of the potential allies in civil society who were engaged in seeking solutions to the crisis. It says a lot about the leadership of trade unions that see their potential allies in the captains of industry and not the civil society.

Cotu has not given priority to the nurturing of affiliate labour unions that can agitate for the rights of women in the work place. Kewwo can testify on how little support they have received from Cotu. Organising women workers and not marginalising them in the trade unions is important.

Trade unions should realise that young women are exploited and oppressed in EPZs and on flower farms; and that it does no harm to nurture more Kewwos so that the agitation and the protection of the rights of women workers are given priority.

TRADE UNION LEADERSHIP NEEDS to reflect on its history. While the trade union movement played a great role in organising workers under colonialism, fighting for independence and taking the post-colonial state to account until 1969, it has a negative history after that. Cotu became an appendage of Kanu during the Kenyatta-Moi dictatorships until 1992 when it was rescued from Kanu's political grips by the multi-party movement.

Cotu has not, as we have pointed about, appreciated the emergence of potential allies to the trade union movement. Nor has our trade unionism understood the current global forces that call for different methods of organising workers.

In reflecting on its history, trade unionism in Kenya should revive and live the spirit of the great trade unionist, freedom fighter, patriot and writer, Markhan Singh. The spirit of Markhan Singh teaches us that what he fought and died for is still relevant to our struggles.

Colonialism has become recolonisation while imperialism is globalisation. The enemies of the trade unionism the world over have not changed as states in various countries still oversee the oppression and exploitation of workers.