OCCUPATIONAL SOLIDARITY AND POWER

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3.3 OCCUPATIONAL SOLIDARITY AND POWER

Strong feelings of professional and workplace solidarity coupled with ‘industrial muscle’ can provide a significant fillip to the status and vocational commitment of an occupational group. However, both remain weak among teachers in Tanzania. A key reason for this is that teachers were only allowed to form their own independent trade union in 1993 and, even then, its powers were heavily circumscribed. In particular, until very recently, there has been no collective bargaining over pay and other conditions of service and strikes have been illegal. Well over half of the teachers at the survey schools in Muleba and Temeke disagree with the statement that ‘teachers at this school think that their trade union is doing a good job’ see Table 2.2. Only one teacher focus group in each location agreed with this statement. This is despite the fact that most teachers belong to the Tanzania Teachers Union and are obliged to pay a membership levy of two percent of their pay. Levels of union activity are quite low, especially in Muleba. 11 A Teacher Service Commission was established in 1986 in order to support the professional interests of teachers. However, the Commission was largely ineffectual and has now been disbanded. There is also widespread confusion about who exactly is the teacher’s employer. According to the Public Service Act, the newly created Teacher Service Department in the Civil Service Department which has replaced the TSC is the formal ‘appointing authority’ but, with decentralisation, district and municipal councils ‘enter into contracts of service and are responsible for the payment of salaries’. At the very least, such fragmentation of key human resource functions does little to promote a sense of professionalism and occupational solidarity among teachers. Certainly, neither teachers nor their trade union want local councils to become their employer. 11 Males are more likely to attend unions meetings than their female colleagues. 63 percent and 33 percent of male teachers at the survey schools in Temeke and Muleba respectively had attended at least one meeting during the previous 12 months compared to 44 percent and 0 percent among female teacher respondents. 17

4. TEACHER COMPETENCE