Industrial Relations in Tanzania

Abstract

Colonised by Germany since about 1890, and governed by Britain after 1919 under mandate from the League of Nations, Tanzania won its independence in 1961. During the colonial period Tanzania (then Tanganyika and Zanzibar) had a mainly peasant economy, but through contact with industrial economies elsewhere had acquired some aspects of capitalism. Thus between 1920 and 1930 the economy witnessed a shift from predominantly peasant production to a plantation economy with the introduction of cash crops. There thus emerged a people employed on plantations — mainly sisal, coffee, rubber and groundnuts — forming a pioneer labour force which increased as the plantation economy expanded. The development of the cash economy initiated the growth of the export sector, and this in turn led to the expansion of communications and the emergence of other activities which all required labour. Between 1924 and 1935 plantation agriculture developed increasingly, as did the construction of railways and roads. By 1929 the railway line from Dar es Salaam to Tanga, built by the Germans in 1919, was extended to Moshi, and by 1934 the Tabora Kigoma line had extended to Manyoni, where coal deposits had been discovered. Similarly, between 1927 and 1938 road mileage had increased from 2650 to 12,000, penetrating areas suitable for the production of cotton, sisal, coffee and tea.