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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Railroad Workers and the Ethiopian State: The Politics of Workers' Organization on the Franco-Ethiopian Railroad, 1919-1959 |
Author: | Killion, Tom C. |
Year: | 1992 |
Periodical: | International Journal of African Historical Studies |
Volume: | 25 |
Issue: | 3 |
Pages: | 583-605 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Ethiopia |
Subjects: | railway workers trade unions rail transport Labor and Employment History and Exploration Politics and Government international relations |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/219026 |
Abstract: | Like other African railroads, the Chemin de fer franco-éthiopien (CFE) was a monopolistic company that was financed and controlled by European State-guaranteed capital. Unlike other African railroads, however, seven-eighths of the CFE ran through the territory of an independent African State: Ethiopia. Consequently the French-controlled CFE company found itself in the precarious position of attempting to enforce a colonial monopoly without the benefit of direct political control, including juridical and coercive power, over most of the territory through which the railroad passed. The author argues that the contradictions inherent in this situation had a profound effect on the relations between workers and capital on the CFE during the years 1919-1959. He examines CFE labour recruitment, early CFE workers' organization (1919-1926), the political and economic realignments of the years 1935-1945, workers' organization and Ethiopian nationalism (1946-1950), and the decline of the Syndicat des cheminots (1950-1959). In particular, he illuminates the actions of CFE workers in pursuit of their own economic and social interests, showing that their strategies were successful where their interests converged with those of the Ethiopian State, but unsuccessful where their interests diverged from those of the Ethiopian ruling class. Notes, ref. |