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By EXPENDITO CHIPALO –

THE headquarters of the Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) is in the central business district of the City of Kitwe, a mining centre which lies at the heart of the Zambian Copperbelt.
The ZCTU Headquarters is known as Katilungu House in honour of the father of African Trade Unionism in the then Northern Rhodesia.
The colonial days were hard days for the indigenous people of this country, but Katilungu and his colleagues fought against all odds to get recognition as human beings with equal rights like their white counterparts.
Although the white settlers who ruled Zambia from the end of World War II tried to distance themselves from the apartheid policies practised by the white government of South Africa.
They equally practiced naked racialism through ‘the industrial colour bar’ which denied Africans basic rights to movement and association especially in the labour movement.
Black Africans were not allowed to organise trade unions and when they went on strike for the first time in 1935, they were brutally suppressed.
That year, miners at three of what were known as the great copper mines at Mufulira, Nkana and Roan Antelope went on strike to protest against unfair British colonial authority taxes imposed on Africans living in urban areas.
The strike ended in tragedy when six miners were killed by police at Roan Antelope Mine.
Although the miners failed to achieve the purpose of their strike, the incident is an important event in history and is regarded as the first open opposition to colonial rule.
It is also recorded as the first industrial action in Northern Rhodesia which is now Zambia.
Africans however remained unrepresented, discriminated and exploited until the end of World War II.
Ironically, at the same time that they were repressing the black workers, the mine owners, and the white colonial government allowed blue collar white workers to form a trade union.
Charles Harris, the secretary general of the South African Mine Workers Union was allowed to start a branch in Northern Rhodesia in 1936 which he named the Northern Rhodesia Mine Workers’ Union (NRMWU).
In early 1937, it was discovered that the South African Mine Workers’ Union constitution did not allow the establishment of branches outside the borders of South Africa.
Frank Maybank, who was secretary general of the NRMWU proceeded to apply for registration of the union in Northern Rhodesia with its own constitution.
The NRMWU was recognised by the Colonial Office and the mine owners in 1937.
The main objectives of the only whites NRMWU were to increase their membership and the restriction of indigenous labour supply to the mines in order to strengthen their bargaining power.
To achieve the first objective, they established branches at all the four big mines at Nkana, Roan Antelope, Mufulira and Broken Hill.
But the white blue collar workers had problems achieving the second objective.
They failed to stop the mine owners from recruiting the abundant cheap African labour. To counteract this, the NRMWU adopted the principle of ‘equal pay for equal work’.
But the mine owners were not prepared to pay Africans the same wages as the whites and this meant restriction of certain jobs for the whites only.
Three years after its establishment, the NRMWU launched a strike in March 1940.
This time, the NRMWU strike triggered a separate protest movement by the unrepresented African miners in which 17 people were killed and 69 injured.
This protest planted the seeds that led to the establishment of African Trade Unions.
Meanwhile, the aftermath of the NRMWU strike, its secretary general Frank Maybank was deported from Northern Rhodesia in 1942 and was not allowed to return to the Copperbelt until after the end of World War II.
At the end of the Second World War in 1945, the new British Labour government determined to support the establishment of African Trade Unions in all the British colonies on the continent.
Advisers from the British Trade Union Congress were sent to Northern Rhodesia to facilitate the establishment of African Trade Unions.
The only whites NRMWU reacted by inviting Africans to join their union but the suggestion was rejected and the African miners went ahead to establish their own unions.  Separate unions were formed in 1947 and 1948 at Nkana, Mufulira, Broken Hill and Roan Antelope.
The president of the Nkana African Mine Workers Union was Lawrence Chola Katilungu.
In order to counter the power of the only whites NRMWU and to strengthen their bargaining power, the leaders of the separate African unions agreed to merge into one national union and thus the birth of the African Mineworkers Union (AMU) in 1949.
The union received recognition from the Colonial Labour office and the owners of the mining companies that same year.
The first president of the African Mineworkers Union was Lawrence Chola Katilungu.
Born in February 1914, and a grandson of Chief Chipalo of Luwingu District in Northern Province, Katilungu led the AMU with an iron fist and quickly organised the establishment of the Northern Rhodesian Trade Union Congress (NRTUC).
Mr Katilungu, who worked as a missionary teacher before joining the Nkana mine in 1936 as an underground worker, led the union at a very difficult time.
It was the time of transition where Africans were fighting for many rights; equality at work places, independence, and voting rights.
It was a period of upheaval and Mr Katilungu fought many battles for Africans and sometimes was suspected to be a “Judas Iscariot.”
Mr Katilungu’s major pre-occupation as the first president of the African Mineworkers Union (AMU) was to fight the ‘industrial colour bar’ which reserved certain blue collar jobs for semi-skilled and skilled whites.
Tension between the two races was inevitable and in 1951, the only whites NRMWU deceitfully proposed an agreement with the AMU that any African replacing a white worker must be housed and paid to the same standard as a European. This effectively delayed the advancement of black workers and increased friction between the members of the two unions.
The AMU unilaterally cancelled the agreement and in 1952, Mr Katilungu led a major strike which stopped copper production for three weeks.
The action resulted into significantly improved wages for African miners which were awarded in January 1953.
The success of the strike convinced many African mineworkers to join the union and by 1954, more than 75 per cent of the African mining work force had joined the union.
The AMU’s bargaining position became much stronger.
Realising the irreversibility of the growing power of the black unions, the Colonial Office and the mine owners announced they would break the ‘industrial colour bar’ in 1953.
The first step was to end the equal pay imposed by the unions and in September 1955, Rhodesian Selection Trust and Anglo American reached a formal agreement with the unions which transferred 24 job classes to African workers and a promise to review further advancement of African miners.
However, contrary to the expectations of the Colonial Office and the mine owners, Mr Katilungu and his colleagues in the AMU were not satisfied with what they considered to be half measures.
They continued to press for the improvement of the position of all African miners, including the unskilled labour force.
The AMU sought wage increases for all workers and in January 1955, a major strike involving 28,885 miners out of the 34,000 African workers took place. The strike lasted up to the end of March 1955 and cost the mine owners £2,000,000 (Two million Pounds Sterling). The workers did not achieve their demand of ten shillings and eight pence per shift, but a smaller increase was awarded later.
The Colonial Office and the mine owners tried to neutralise the power of the AMU by supporting the formation of a rival union called the Mines African Staff Association (MASA).
Mr Katilungu was incensed and told his members that the new union “was meant to deprive the AMU of membership and to split the African work force.”
The AMU’s response to the formation of the MASA was a series of strikes throughout the Copperbelt and in 1956, the Colonial government declared a state of emergency.
AMU leaders were arrested and banned from entering the Copperbelt. An inquiry known as the Branigan Report was established to investigate possible links between the AMU and the African political activists.
The commission concluded that the AMU President Lawrence Katilungu did not support the union becoming involved in politics.
The union had earlier declined to participate in a protest organised by the African National Congress to oppose the establishment of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1953.
Mr Katilungu was thus selected as a member of the 26-member Advisory Commission on Central Africa which was set up by the British government to review the constitution of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1960.
His stance put him at loggerheads with other unions that belonged to the NRTUC of which he was President.
But the AMU was in full support of its President and it’s the support of his union, Mr Katilungu expelled all the unions that were in arrears leaving only three mining unions as affiliates of the NRTUC.
The expelled unions responded by forming a rival body known as the Reformed Trade Union Congress (RTUC). The power he wielded as leader of the AMU tempted Mr Katilungu to join politics and he was expelled from the union in 1961. In his absence, the RTUC dissolved itself and the member unions returned to the NRTUC.
Mr Katilungu joined the African National Congress (ANC) and acted as President of the party in 1961 when its leader Harry Mwaanga Nkumbula was sent to prison.
He was, however, strongly opposed to the participation of Africans from outside Northern Rhodesia in the country’s politics.
To justify his hatred for foreign natives, Mr Katilungu called himself ‘Lesa wa Bufuba’ (The Jealous God).
On the other hand, the UNIP leadership considered him a ‘Judas Iscariot’ and were allegedly happy when he died.
However, before his death Mr Katilingu toured the Northern and Luapula provinces to campaign for the ANC with the same anti foreign messages.
The Katilungu’s legacy as founder of trade unionism in Zambia lives on in Kitwe AST Katilungu House, the Headquarters of the Zambia Congress of Trade Unions.
However note that the name Katilungu  has been  misspelled as Katilunga in some literature . The correct spelling is as spelt in this article.
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