Senegal - Working conditions

Senegal maintains a comprehensive labor code that defines legal regulations about workers' rights and employer obligations. According to the U.S. Department of State Country Report on Human Rights in Senegal (1998) , most Senegalese workers fall outside the laws of the labor code because they work in the informal or agricultural sectors. The law only applies to the non-agricultural formal sector. Moreover, certain regulations, such as those relating to safety standards in the work place, are neither adequately monitored nor enforced by the government. Because most workers are unskilled and uneducated and there are few employment opportunities in the economy, workers usually find themselves unable to contest violations of labor code standards. Thus, working conditions are often sub-standard.

Under the Senegalese constitution, the minimum age for employment is 16 years for apprenticeships and 18 years for all other activities. The government has strictly enforced this article of the constitution in the formal sector, though child labor is common in the agriculture and informal sectors. Most families in these sectors are so disadvantaged that all family members must work, regardless of age.

After independence, Senegal ratified the International Labor Convention No. 87, regarding freedom of association and protection of the right to organize. Senegal also ratified convention No. 48, which provides rights to organize and bargain collectively. Senegal has a long history of organized trade unions. Nearly all workers in the industrial sector of the economy are unionized. The principal labor unions are the National Confederation of Senegalese Workers (CNTS) and the National Union of Autonomous Labor Organizations of Senegal (UNSAS). The CNTS is an umbrella union that organizes individual unions into a collective framework. The PS established it in 1968 after the National Union of Senegalese Workers was dissolved due to its opposition to government policies. Under President Leopold Senghor's program of "responsible participation," CNTS leaders were given important party and government posts. Despite being allied with the PS, the union has often disagreed with government policies. In 1986, changes in the labor code provided more room for employers to lay off workers and caused a great deal of agitation from CNTS supporters.

In recent years, trade unions and political persuasions united to protest government policies. In September 1993, the Intersyndicale (a broad trade union coalition headed by the CNTS that also includes independent unions and those close to the major opposition parties) led a one-day general strike to protest the government's decision to cut state employee salaries by 15 percent. The decision to cut the salaries was made in compliance with IMF and WB demands for greater cutbacks in government spending. UNSAS, the second most important union in the coalition, broke away from Intersyndicale after the organization decided to negotiate with the government following the general strike. UNSAS has supported a less compromising stance towards unpopular government policies, making it difficult for the union to work with its less militant counterparts.