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10 July, 2025Seventy participants from IndustriALL affiliates across 17 Sub-Saharan African countries launched an online worker-educators forum, a joint initiative with the International Federation of Workers Education Associations (IFWEA), on 1 July.
The platform leverages technological advances in e-learning and open-access messaging apps to deliver cost-effective workers’ education, aiming to strengthen union capacity and improve workplace conditions in industries such as automotive, battery manufacturing, base metals, chemicals, energy, engineering, mining, oil and gas and textile and garments.
The forum responds to the digital transformation reshaping workplaces, emphasizing the need for union commitment to e-learning, language accessibility and tailored educational resources relevant to diverse manufacturing sectors. The forum aims to enhance worker empowerment and union resilience across the region’s industries.
Workers require only a smartphone with internet access to participate, sharing experiences and accessing training. A participatory approach will guide the forum, with a survey determining preferred topics, followed by a flexible programme designed around participants’ schedules.
“This forum is for anyone involved in helping workers learn about their rights, improve their working and social conditions and organize for change. Whether through union education programmes, as a worker leader, a shop steward, or an active member supporting others informally, your contribution matters!” reads the forum’s pamphlet.
The initiative seeks to address challenges faced by Sub-Saharan African unions, including limited external solidarity with Global North partners, by strengthening innovative training and organizing strategies. Skills development is seen as critical for unions to retain members amid technological and demographic shifts.
Melanie Jules, IFWEA programme manager for the Online Labour Academy, described the forum as “a global effort to promote worker unity and grassroots education through digital tools, emphasizing flexibility and solidarity.” She said the forum’s approach is not academic but practical in ways that included union approaches to lifelong learning and had potential to reach thousands of workers at the factories where discussions will be in small groups such as study circles. Young and women workers would also benefit together with other marginalized workers making a living in the informal economies.
“Workers’ education is important in a region facing shrinking civic spaces, digital divides and limited resources. Trade unions need knowledge on how to confront job loses, low wages, unsafe workplaces and gender-based violence and harassment,”
said Rose Omamo, IndustriALL vice president.
IndustriALL Sub-Saharan Africa regional secretary, Paule France Ndessomin, welcomed the platform as a vital step in adapting worker education to the digital era.
“As work evolves, so must our approaches to education to tackle emerging challenges and build trade union power,”
she said.
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