The new organisation will bring together the Chemical and Printing Workers' Union (SINTIQUIGRA), the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Workers Union (SINTIOVEC), the Ports and Railway Workers Union (SINPOCAF), plus the Ports and Allied Workers Union (SINPEOC).
No name has yet been fixed for the new organization, which will only choose one at the meeting of its founding general assembly, due in November.
The executive secretary of Mozambique's main trade union federation, the OTM, Ana Timana, welcomed the planned merger, and urged other trade unions to follow this example, because only unity can ensure any success for workers.
Speaking last week, at the closing session of an OTM conference, Jose Titos Zunguza, of the organization's secretariat, said that another planned merger is between the Dockworkers' Union and SINPOCAF.
Zunguza claimed that since Mozambique's first structural adjustment programme, that began in 1987, most of the country's large companies have gone bankrupt, and have been replaced by smaller firms, which poses difficulties for unionisation and the mediation of labour conflicts.
"What happens is that a company is set up according to the law, but when it goes bankrupt it is handed over to new owners who, according to their needs, downsize, sacking workers, and leaving many without jobs, including members of the trade union committee", he said.
Once new companies are set up, the OTM is obliged to establish new trade union committees, paying for all the costs of the training the new members of the trade union's structures, Zunguza added.
SOURCE: AIM
