Page 141 - Afrika Must Unite

126 AFRICA MUST UNITE
staffed so that it can cope with the problem and give effective
results. We are faced with the task of producing crops for
conversion into commodities, and must depend upon our
research institutes to assist us with the problems involved. The
demands that will be made upon our scientific institutions as we
proceed will grow more varied and extensive, and we shall have
to strengthen them.
One of our problems at the present time is that of unemploy­
ment, particularly among school-leavers whose education has
not gone very far. To meet this problem, we have formed a
Workers Brigade, which has absorbed about 12,000 young men
and women, who are being trained in discipline, responsibility
and citizenship. They are being given the elements of skill which
will enable them to find employment in agriculture and industry
as our development gathers momentum. Their training is m ean­
while being supplemented by valuable experience in work on
community projects and in co-operative agriculture. The Volta
River project will require 15,000 workers over a period of five
years and our official employment exchanges are now placing
almost 2,000 workers in all kinds of jobs every month.
W ith the changes brought by the new social and economic
policy, there has been a re-examination of the role of our trade
unions. The public and semi-public sectors of the economy have
been widening out, so that the government is now the largest
employer of labour in the country, while its regulations are
placing an increasing obligation upon private enterprise not only
to respect the rights of labour but to make its contribution to the
investment in our national development. The workers under­
stand that they are working for a state which is directed by a
government of their own choosing, whose programme they have
helped to formulate through party membership, and which they
actively endorse and support. Hence the aspirations of the people
and the economic and social objectives of the government are
synonymous.
The role of the trade unions, therefore, in our circumstances, is
entirely different from that in a capitalist society where the
motivating force is the accumulation of private profit. The aims
of our trade unions, being identified with those of the govern­
ment, weds them to active participation in the carrying out of the