Feisty Atwoli: End of an era?

Kenya: “Our trade unions will not be satisfied until they can freely contribute to the social and economic development of the worker as a class.” These were words written by the late Tom Mboya in his book 'Freedom and After' published six years before his assassination.

Before his death, Mboya was one of the figureheads of the African trade union movement. At 28, Mboya had completed an industrial management course at Britain’s Ruskin College, elected the secretary general of the Kenya Federation of Labour, and chairman of the inaugural All-African Peoples’ Conference (AAPC). Fifty years after writing those words, social-economic emancipation among Kenya’s low-income workers remains a mirage.