Trade Unions in Kenya’s War of Independence

It is due to the success of the trade union
movement in the national liberation movement that the colonial
government suppressed prominent trade unions and attacked TU leaders
like Makhan Singh, Fred Kubai, Pio Gama Pinto and Bildad Kaggia. It also
passed on colonial laws to the independent Kenya government so as to
ensure that future trade unions were forced to take the non-radical
approach to meet worker needs. They thus created imperialist-oriented
and led trade unions that bedevil working class politics to this day.

There
are valuable lessons to be learnt from the history of the militant
trade unions in Kenya and also from understanding how colonialism and
imperialism enforced changes that made the trade unions ineffective
after independence. The selections in this book recall relevant events
in the history of the militant trade union movement in Kenya and record
the contribution that the trade union movement made to Mau Mau and to
Kenya’s war of independence.

The Kenya Resists Series covers
different aspects of resistance by people of Kenya to colonialism and
imperialism. It reproduces material from books, unpublished reports,
research and oral or visual testimonies. The three aspects chosen for
the first three publications in the Series – Mau Mau, Trade Unions and
People’s Resistance – make up the three pillars of resistance of the
people of Kenya.