The cultural attitude towards labour and labourers and its adverse effect to labour development of the country has already been mentioned. In fact, it was not only the cultural attitude but also the unfavourable legal environment at the time that was responsible for hindering the development of labour relations. Although Ethiopia, as noted previously, is one of the oldest members of both the League of Nations and the ILO, having acceded to both institutions in 1923 (Baudissin, 1965:108), slavery was an entrenched and legally recognised social relation in the country until it was abolished by law in 1942.22 As labour relationships presuppose the
availability of ‘free’ persons who can freely bargain over their services, the prevalence of slavery as a social system was incompatible with the emergence of labour relations. Thus, the negative cultural attitude of Ethiopian society towards labour and the long-standing legal recognition of the status of slavery were among the factors responsible for the slow and limited development of labour relations in Ethiopia.
As can sometimes be the case it was political conflict that provided the starter motor for the engine of economic change. The Italian invasion of Ethiopia at the beginning of the Second World War (1936) led to the emergence of labour-intensive industries supportive to the war efforts of the invading force (such as oil, flour and saw mills; textile, leather, cement, food and beverage factories) (CETU, 1991:26). Due to the labour intensiveness of those manufacturing enterprises and the relative permanent employment status of their labour force together with the formation of garrison towns in different parts of the country the number of people who earned their livelihood through employment increased (Hall, 2003:105). Whilst the labour force showed a significant quantitative increase, there existed no commensurate statutory framework designed to regulate the employment relationship. By default ‘contractual freedom’ became the legal basis for the parties’ relationship and employees then were to a significant extent at the mercy of their employers. It has been even said that for all practical purposes the relationship was more of master and servant rather than an employer and employee one (Seyoum, 1969:19; Teferra, 2007:3).
22 Slavery (Abolition) Proclamation of 1942. In fact prior to this, there was a Proclamation issued in 1931 which
attempted to abolish slavery but it was not bold enough to do away with the status. The relevant provision in that proclamation stated as follows: ‘All slaves who wished to be free could become free by asserting their freedom before a judge’. This was not drastic enough to abolish slavery. First, the proclamation addressed itself to slaves ‘who wished to be free’ but not to all slaves. Second, even for those ‘who wished to be free’, the freedom was not automatic and as of right; it rather expected the blessing of the judge because the law required them to assert their right before a judge. In practice, there had never been any report as to whether this modality was utilised towards asserting freedom.
Three years after the defeat of the Italians, and two years after the 1942 proclamation of the abolition of the status of slavery in Ethiopia, the government promulgated the Factories’ Proclamation No.58/1944 an important legal instrument relevant to labour relations. By virtue of this Proclamation, the then Ministry of Commerce and Industry was entrusted with the power to issue rules on:
-the working hours in factories;
-the prevention of accidents in factories;
-the health and safety of all persons employed in factories;
-the conditions under which buildings to be used as factory housing may be erected and constructed;
In addition to these measures, the Ministry was empowered to appoint ‘labour inspectors’ to carry out supervision and monitoring activities over the factories with a view to ensuring the observance of the rules. From these, the government appeared to have realised the need for a limited state intervention in labour relations mainly on safety and health issues in factories. In real terms, however, records indicated that the Factories’ Proclamation of 1944 did not have any impact on the ground (Teferra, 2007:6; Baudissin, 1965:103). This was because for one thing the way it was drafted was not self-executing in the sense that it merely entrusted power to the Ministry to act rather than spelling out precise and enforceable provisions. Second, the Ministry did not make use of any of the powers entrusted to it, nor did the legislature supervise the exercise of such power by the Ministry.
Actually, Seyoum (1969) was of the opinion that the ‘Factories’ Proclamation’ was a premature instrument in that factory development and employment then was too low to warrant state intervention. In so holding, Seyoum tended to view legal rules just from the standpoint of their contribution as a regulatory mechanism. This understanding of law tended to overlook the equally important developmental role that legal rules can serve to guide and design a desired future course of action in society. In fact, the ‘social engineering’ role of the law in Ethiopian history was more visible in the mid 1950s to 1960s when the then Emperor, advised by west
European legal experts, introduced modern codes23 with Western values to the then agrarian and
traditional Ethiopian society with a view to bring about social modernity (World Bank, 2000:15; Vanderlinden, 1966:259). However, the effort to ‘modernize’ the Ethiopian legal system, was attempted to be implemented through the process of law codification which was spearheaded by foreign experts (Vanderlinden, 1966:257) with little involvement and interest of the majority of the local population limiting its impact to the urban areas of the country (Singer, 1970:122). Apart from the controversy as to the relevance of the Factories’ Proclamation, a further limitation was that its scope of application was confined to working conditions in factories (i.e. the manufacturing sector). The employees at agricultural plantations or in mining and other sectors of the economy who were equally vulnerable to risks such as excessive working hours, and threats against their health and life at workplaces were outside of its coverage as their places of work were not technically ‘factories’. Indeed, the first recorded workers’ protest in Ethiopian history had been undertaken in 1915 by construction workers in Addis Ababa whose main discontent was associated with unsafe working conditions (CETU, 1991:22).
Notwithstanding the limitations referred to above, it can be argued that the Factories’ Proclamation was a positive step in the sense that it showed that the government realised the need, possibly the desirability, of some level of state intervention in labour affairs. In particular, the adoption of the Factories’ Proclamation only two years after the abolition of slavery indicated that the government recognised the abolition of slavery and replacing it by ‘contractual freedom’ was not a guaranty to protect labour. Nevertheless, since the Ministry entrusted with the responsibility did not act upon its powers, the legislative measure was merely formal and not much more than a mere expression of concern or interest. The issuance of the law though necessary was not sufficient to ensure its implementation.
It was not until 1960 that the 1944 Factories’ Proclamation was supplemented in any way with further legislation and then only as one part of the Civil Code enacted by the then legislature of the Empire of Ethiopia. The 1960 Civil Code comprehensively regulated many of the social relations of private life such as marriage, succession, contracts and property. As part of this comprehensive regulatory effort, it devoted a section (Title XVI) on ‘Contracts for the
23 The Ethiopian Penal Code of 1957, The Ethiopian Civil of 1960, The Ethiopian Commercial Code of 1960, The
Ethiopian Maritime Code of 1960 and The Ethiopian Criminal Procedure Code of 1961 and The Ethiopian Civil Procedure Code of 1965 were adopted during that period.
Performance of Services’, which mainly addressed issues of the contract of employment. Indeed, ‘it was the most comprehensive legislation ever written in Ethiopia about employment relations’ (Seyoum, 1969:17).
With the coming into force of the Civil Code of 1960, minimum labour conditions which had the effect of restricting the application of the terms of contractual freedom were spelt out. Consequently, the principle of no termination of a contract of employment ‘without good cause’ was introduced, and failure to comply with the law would entitle the dismissed employee to compensation (Civil Code, Art.2573), thereby seeking to protect the employee from arbitrary dismissal.24 The practice during the pre-Code era in which an employee was not entitled to wages for the days he did not render any service to the employer for whatever reason was revised. Social entitlements in the form of paid annual leave, maternity leave and sick leave were introduced by the Code into the Ethiopian labour relationship for the first time. Provisions were also incorporated in the Civil Code obliging the employer to provide safety and protective equipment with a view to preventing employment injury and to compensate the employee where employment injury was sustained (ibid: Art. 2548-2552). A notable omission, however, was that despite these formal contributions, the Civil Code failed to lay down the legal framework necessary for the establishment of associations for the employers and employees. As a result, issues of unionisation and collective bargaining remained unregulated until the adoption of the Labour Proclamation of 1963, to be discussed in Chapter 3.
Incidentally, it is interesting to recall that Ethiopia adopted a Commercial Code in 1960 which provided, among other things, provisions for the establishment of business organisations such as private limited companies and share companies which in effect were associations of capital. Although an individual employer by virtue of owning capital has already been stronger than the individual employee, the adoption of the law on business organisations further enhanced the strength of capital by providing it an opportunity to further associate. Ironically, employees did not obtain a legal basis and similar opportunity for association although, as we shall see in the next chapter, they badly needed it and their claim for unionisation was long overdue.
24However, termination of employment with cause or without cause by providing advance notice to the employee