Justice on Trial: Tanzania’s Labour Courts and the Long Road to Worker-Centred Reform
Tanzania’s High Court Labour Division Judges during the two-day training themed “Enhanced Leadership Skills for Effectiveness and Efficiency in Labour Justice Delivery,” in Arusha. - Source ILO
Introduction: Can a Courtroom Deliver Dignity?
In Tanzania, where thousands of workers face precarious conditions, low wages, and weak enforcement of their rights, the question is no longer whether labour laws exist; it is whether they work. Too often, legal protections remain on paper while violations go unchallenged in factories, farms, and informal workplaces. And as the nature of work continues to evolve through informalisation, digitisation, and global economic shifts, labour laws that remain stagnant risk falling behind, leaving more and more workers unprotected. The benchmark must keep moving forward, shaped by workers' lived realities, or else the system becomes symbolic, offering rights in theory but not in practice.
Against this backdrop, the announcement in May 2025 of a strengthened partnership between the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Tanzanian Judiciary is both timely and potentially transformative. The initiative, introduced through a leadership and capacity-building training for judicial officers, aims to enhance the country’s labour justice system signalling an important step toward bridging the gap between law and justice for Tanzania’s working class.
But for many workers in Tanzania especially those in mining, agriculture, garment factories, and domestic work, the issue isn’t just about judicial training; it’s whether justice reaches them at all. These workers often operate in informal or precarious settings that sit outside the crude legal definitions of “employed labour.” As a result, they are excluded from protections, overlooked in enforcement mechanisms, and underrepresented in institutional frameworks. This underscores a deeper challenge: both unions and the ILO must expand their definitions, networks, and strategies to reflect the real shape of today’s labour force. Without doing so, vast numbers of workers will remain invisible, falling through legal and structural cracks that reforms alone cannot fix.
What the Partnership Promises: A Technical Fix or Structural Change?
The ILO-Judiciary collaboration centres on improving leadership and efficiency within Tanzania’s High Court Labour Division, building a more “responsive and fair” system. The two-day training focused on ethical leadership, judicial efficiency, and digitisation. It was attended by key labour court judges and led by officials including Hon. Mustapher Siyani, Principal Judge, and ILO Country Director Caroline Khamati Mugalla.
The aim? To tackle backlogs, inefficiencies, and inconsistencies in the adjudication of labour disputes, issues that have long frustrated unions and workers seeking redress.
However, while digitisation and training are necessary, labour advocates say they are not enough. Without clear mandates for pro-worker jurisprudence, public accountability, and stronger enforcement, the reforms risk becoming cosmetic.
Justice for Whom? Power, Precarity and the Rural Working Class
The Tanzanian labour justice system; like those in many African countries is structurally biased in favour of capital. Employers often evade compliance with little consequence, while workers face long delays, legal fees, and intimidation.
This imbalance is even more acute in rural areas, where many workers in plantations, small-scale mining, and agro-processing plants lack contracts, union coverage, or legal literacy.
Unions like TAWOMA (Tanzania Women Miners Association), which advocates for the rights and recognition of women in the largely informal and male-dominated mining sector in Tanzania, and NUPAWU (National Union of Plantation and Agricultural Workers of Uganda), which represents workers in Uganda’s vast agricultural and plantation industries, have documented how informal workers, especially women, are routinely denied access to courts; or worse, don’t even know such access exists. These unions play a critical role in amplifying the voices of marginalized labor groups and exposing systemic barriers to justice across East Africa.
The ILO’s support could tip the scale, if it includes resources for mobile courts, worker legal education, and unions as official litigators in remote disputes.
Regional Insight: Courts, Labour and the Limits of Legalism
Across Africa, reforming labour courts has become a strategic focus. In South Africa, the Labour Court has played a vital role in setting precedents on unfair dismissal and wage discrimination. But even there, the system remains slow and expensive for low-wage earners.
In Kenya, a 2024 wave of court decisions reversed unjust employer terminations, but implementation lags remain. Meanwhile, Uganda’s Employment Act revision seeks to extend protection to informal workers, including domestic workers and boda boda drivers, but judicial enforcement has been weak.
Tanzania’s partnership with the ILO thus fits into a continent-wide trend of legal reform without structural overhaul. The law is changing. But without strong unions, enforcement capacity, and working-class pressure, the gap between law and lived experience grows.
Lessons and Tactics for the Labour Movement
Trade unions must treat court reform as a battlefield, not a side note. Legal systems, while technical, are deeply political. They reflect and reproduce power.
For Tanzanian unions, this moment is an opportunity to:
Push for legal aid desks inside union offices, especially in rural regions.
Train shop stewards in basic labour law and paralegal support.
Demand regular public reporting from labour courts on case volumes, timelines, and outcomes.
Document and publish employer violations, linking them to court inaction.
Forge alliances with feminist and youth legal collectives, who are already pushing for access to justice in other sectors.
Conclusion: Courts Are Not Enough. Worker Power Must Lead.
The ILO-Tanzania judiciary partnership is a positive development, but it must be shaped by those it seeks to serve. Labour justice cannot be achieved by judges alone. It requires workers empowered to demand it, unions equipped to defend it, and institutions bold enough to deliver it.
As Tanzania embarks on this new phase of judicial strengthening, the labour movement must keep asking: is this reform reaching the woman picking roses in Arusha? The miner in Geita? The domestic worker in Daresalaam?
If the answer is no, the work is not done.
References
ILO. (2025). ILO and Tanzanian Judiciary deepen partnership to strengthen labour justice. link