Trade unions in the Gambia
[1] Gambian mansolu (Mandinka elders) could traditionally declare tongs, collective refusals to sell to merchants unless they met certain demands.
According to Matthew James Park, a tong was "substantively similar to a strike, but it carried the weight of 'tradition' and was thus seen in a more positive light by the administration for a longer time.
The Gambian chamber of commerce, which represented employers, called on the colonial government to ban picket lines; it agreed, invoking the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act 1875.
Four days later, 200-300 strikers blocked traffic and shut down main streets in Bathurst; police dispersed the crowd with a bayonet charge.
[12] The incident caused an outcry in Bathurst, and the employers hurriedly organised a conference with the union and conceded substantial wage increases.
[9] Small spent much of 1930–1932 trying to secure foreign financial assistance for the BTU and left the union in the hands of his lieutenant, Thomas Collingwood Fye.
He spoke at the conference and was elected to the ITUCNW executive board and appointed associate editor of its newspaper, The Negro Worker.
[14] The 1929 strike apparently influenced Sidney Webb's 1930 Passfield Memorandum, which stipulated that British colonies should establish constitutional mechanisms for registering trade unions.
"[19] Its 1960 leadership was retired senior artisans and civil servants, who participated in trade unionism "on a part-time basis" and did not believe in striking.
None of its leaders stood for election, it did not attend constitutional talks with the United Kingdom, and it opposed the 1960 and 1961 general strikes called by the Gambia Workers' Union.
Jallow worked with former GLU general secretary A. W. Loum to build the union, which then began to generate labour unrest in the Bathurst docks in August 1959.
The strike had three motivations: to challenge the Gambia Oilseeds Marketing Board (GOMB), which had signed a contract for its groundnut steamers to be loaded by non-unionised labour; to seek official recognition from the government and revise the mechanism of wage negotiation, and to prove its effectiveness to Bathurst workers by securing a large minimum wage increase.
This strike was also successful, leading to a further 13-percent increase in the minimum wage, and the government and employers were forced to concede a check-off system of union-dues collection.
[27] Unlike several other African countries, trade unions in The Gambia "did not feature prominently in stimulating or organizing radical opposition to the government" before independence.
"[29] Following independence in 1965, the Gambia Workers' Union opposed the Republic Bill proposed by the People's Progressive Party (PPP) government of Dawda Jawara.
[30] PPP politicians revived the National Farmers and General Workers Union (NFGWU), founded in 1964, to draw members from the GWU and weaken it.
The GLU admired the North Korean leader Kim Il Sung, and awarded scholarships to young Gambians to attend Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow.
[33] The GWU called for a general strike in 1977 in support of sacked Gambia Utilities Corporation (GUC) workers, but it was suppressed by the government.
