ABSTRACT
In recent years, various authors have highlighted the role that unions have played in the democratization process in the Republic of Niger. However, in the overwhelming majority of studies, the focus so far has been on what happened between the end of the 1980s and after 1990. The goal of this chapter is to retrace the history of the Nigerien unions from the early years of their existence to date and to show that they draw their strength and their many successes from a long experience of “political unionism” and civil society interventionism which have prevailed over sheer corporatism. The chapter argues that the struggles of the unions in Niger have never been separate from the political struggles. The political context, both under colonization and following independence, has indeed heavily shaped and oriented most of the organized labour protest movements.
