ABSTRACT
At the turn of Addis Ababa’s new millennium, tens of thousands of NGO-and government-deployed CHWs were actively serving in communities across Ethiopia. A large proportion of these CHWs faced difficult job conditions and poverty. But there was no CHW association that Eskinder, Alemnesh, Asayech, or any of their peers could have joined to coordinate and advance their various interests. They were certainly not part of any labor movement. Meanwhile, Ethiopian workers in general were and are in weak positions. According to the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), Ethiopia has registered numerous trade union rights violations in recent years. The country’s Labor Proclamation does not proclaim a right to freedom of association and collective bargaining, and the government can dissolve trade unions that carry out a strike in an essential service (ITUC 2013). Further, after Ethiopia’s contested and violent 2005 elections, when the ruling party demonstrated its willingness to kill and imprison political opponents and protestors, citizens have grown fearful of popular protest, and the EPRDF-led government has tightened its grip on journalists and bloggers as well as civil society organizations and trade unions (ITUC 2013). In 2009, the party-controlled legislature passed a law that requires all civil society organizations in the country that receive more than 10% of their budgets from abroad to desist from any work in the arena of civil or human rights advocacy or monitoring, and that provides government authorities open access to their records and their meetings at any time, without warning (Feyissa 2011). NGOs involved in health, education, and other development sectors, including Hiwot and Medhin, have had to adjust to these controversial new rules. Some civil society organizationsfor instance, the Ethiopian Women Lawyer’s Association (EWLA), one of the most prominent organizations in Ethiopia-have even seen their funds
confiscated by the government and have had to shut down or close many offices and branches (Burgess 2013). 1
Thus in Ethiopia in the early 21st century, major labor associations are beholden to the ruling party. But at least some trades have associations. Even if their existence requires cooperating with the ruling party, they can still serve some of their members’ collective interests in social policies and exchanges. For instance, currently the Ethiopian Medical Association (EMA) and the Ethiopian Public Health Association (EPHA) are active, the latter established in 1991 with the rise of the EPRDF. 2 These organizations function to advance some of the interests of their members and to inf luence health and social policies in Ethiopia. CHWs in Ethiopia do not even have coopted state-level associations of their own or formal representation in the EPHA. 3
And yet, even if CHWs in Addis Ababa at the turn of Ethiopia’s millennium did not have a way to collectively bargain with their NGO supervisors and directors, propose legislation, or hold their own rallies and demonstrations as a labor union or CHW association might, this chapter will show that they still made attempts to communicate their frustrations to their supervisors and take greater control over their own lives. Thus even where there is no CHW labor movement or association-as is likely true in many parts of the world-there are still labor relations. In such contexts, what do CHW interactions with management regarding their job conditions look like and what further insights can we draw from them?
