Partnering with Trade Unions to advance labour mobility in Africa
Across Africa, workers are already on the move. They move across borders in search of jobs, skills, opportunity and safety. This mobility is often driven by several factors including socioeconomic inequality, climate pressures, or conflict.
Despite this reality, labour migration across the continent remains largely informal, poorly regulated, shrouded with legal uncertainty and lacking adequate social protection for workers. This situation exposes migrant workers to exploitation and weakens labour standards for all workers. Discrimination and xenophobia against migrant workers are fueled partly because local workers fear downward pressure on wages and working conditions on account of local employers’ use of migrant workers.
The Protocol to the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community Relating to Free Movement of Persons, Right of Residence and Right of Establishment (AU FMP) was adopted to address precisely these challenges. By enabling Africans to move, reside, and work across the continent in a regulated and rights-based manner, the protocol supports the goals of advancing the continent’s development and unlocking economic integration as contained in the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and Agenda 2063. It is an important tool for promoting decent work of African migrant workers on the continent. But, progress toward ratification and implementation by AU Member States has been slow and stagnant. Although states are adopting unilateral measures to liberalise mobility, only four states - Rwanda, Mali, Niger and Sao Tome and Principe - have ratified the protocol. For the protocol to enter into force, it should be ratified by at least 15 countries. It is therefore critical to address the current bottlenecks and strategically support countries with ratifying the protocol.
To overcome these bottlenecks and political hesitation, trade unions must actively collaborate with their counterparts across African countries, migration policy experts and governments, as well as the migrant workers themselves. Such collaboration should focus on strengthening advocacy of trade unions towards state actors to drive the ratification of the protocol and to institutionalise the interface between trade union and social partners in their participation in labour mobility negotiations. This partnership is essential to making free movement work for workers, economies, and states alike. No single actor can drive this agenda alone.
Why Collaboration Is Essential
Migration is also about labour
Labour migration policies are increasingly framed through employment creation, security and border control lenses, often sidelining labour rights. Trade unions and migrant workers help address this oversight by bringing practical knowledge of employment conditions, recruitment practices, and sector-specific vulnerabilities into policy discussions. They have a worker-centred perspective that highlights decent work, fair recruitment, social protection, and collective bargaining. Working together with policymakers and other non-state actors, they can ensure that the Free Movement Protocol is implemented in ways that protect labour standards, promote decent work, and prevent exploitation.
Informality weakens labour standards
Most African cross-border workers are pushed into informality, by lack of enforceable work contracts, undermining wages, safety standards, making union organising difficult and allowing unscrupulous employers to evade labour laws. Over time, this informalisation harms both migrant and national workers by depressing wages, worsening working conditions, and creating divisions in the workforce. Trade unions have lobbied African governments to implement international labour and human rights standards that protect both domestic and migrant workers. Trade unions, supported by robust policy analysis, are well placed to demonstrate that regulated free movement reduces informality, strengthens labour inspection, and creates fairer competition in labour markets.
Governments need credible, unified social actors’ voices
Many African governments are cautious about ratifying the Free Movement Protocol due to concerns about unemployment, public service pressure, or political backlash. These fears persist partly because of limited data, weak political will and coordination across ministries, and a lack of clear implementation strategies. Governments are more likely to act when they hear consistent, evidence-based demands from trusted social partners. When trade unions, migrant workers’ associations, recruitment agencies, migration experts, and regional institutions speak with one voice, free movement becomes a practical governance reform rather than a political risk. Trade unions can offer governments practical and phased pathways to adoption, showing how free movement can be aligned with national development plans, skills strategies, and labour market needs. This helps shift the debate from abstract commitments to realistic governance solutions.
Two Key Recommendations to Accelerate Adoption
1. Identify a ‘coalition of the willing’ to drive the ratification of the protocol
Strategic engagement with a coalition of countries willing to implement the Free Movement Protocol is a critical first step to drive its adoption. This engagement with governments should focus on countries that have shown willingness to promote intra-regional mobility or have made progress in unilateral visa facilitation measures. For example, partnering with states that have implemented visa free entry provisions for all African citizens. Trade unions, working together with other actors and the African Union Commission, can promote advocacy and dialogue with governments to address their concerns and support the signature, ratification and implementation of the protocol. By grounding advocacy in policy feasibility, unions can shift free movement debates from fear-based narratives to development-driven solutions.
2. Institutionalize Trade Union and social partners’ interface and participation in labour mobility negotiations.
Governments and the African Union must recognise trade unions and social partners as core stakeholders in the adoption and implementation of the Free Movement Protocol. This requires their systematic inclusion in national ratification processes and legislative reviews, the integration of labour rights safeguards—such as equal treatment, social security portability, and freedom of association—into free movement frameworks, and support for cross-border trade union cooperation to monitor implementation and prevent exploitation.
Practical examples across the continent demonstrate how such participation can be institutionalised. In Uganda, the National Organisation of Trade Unions (NOTU) has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Recruiters’ Association to promote fair recruitment practices. Similar cooperation exists in Nigeria between the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Nigerian Recruiters’ Association. In Kenya, the government actively involves trade unions, through the Central Organisation of Trade Unions (COTU), in labour mobility negotiations to strengthen both the process and outcomes. Building on these experiences, trade unions are increasingly sharing lessons across countries and regions on effective engagement with governments and on advancing the Free Movement Protocol within labour mobility discussions.
Moving Forward Together - success depends on collaboration
The AU Free Movement Protocol is not just about crossing borders—it is about building a unified and integrated African labour market that works for everyone, including workers. Trade unions possess the legitimacy, structure, network, and moral authority to drive this agenda; however, success depends on effective collaboration. Trade unions play a critical role in ensuring that free movement delivers decent work, social protection, and dignity for all African workers. By working together with policy experts and state institutions, unions can help turn free movement from a political aspiration into a lived reality—one that benefits workers, economies, and the continent as a whole.
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