Hawassa (Ethiopia) (AFP)
Zemen Zerihun thought he had won a ticket for a better life when, arriving from his native farm, he got a job as a textile worker in the industrial park of Hawassa, in the south of Ethiopia.
But after a few months, the 22-year-old young man slammed the door, tired of working under stressful conditions to ensure productivity, eight hours a day, six days a week, without being able to live decently with a salary of 31 euros per month.
There, "the supervisors treat you like animals," he explains. "Too slow", "Lazy", they would yell to him if the production chain rate slowed down. They were so strict that they followed the workers to the bathroom to make sure they didn't waste more time than necessary. "I suffered," he told AFP.
This example illustrates one of the main challenges facing the Ethiopian authorities who want to industrialize the country to make it less dependent on agriculture.
The idea is to follow the model of China and other Asian nations by attracting foreign investment through cheap labor, by building a robust manufacturing sector capable of providing jobs for young people.
In fact, industrial activity in the twelve existing parks has created tens of thousands of jobs.
But despite a high unemployment rate, young people refuse to work for a pittance in deplorable conditions: thousands of them preferred to resign.
In Hawassa, the staff turnover rate was close to 100% in 2017-2018, according to a report by the Stern Center for Business and Human Rights of New York University, published in May 2019.
- Industrialization at any cost -
The additional costs of recruiting and training new hires have "been found to be considerably higher than what the government originally said," the report said.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sees these industrial parks as an engine of growth that could help avoid unrest before the elections scheduled for August 2020.
As early as 2014 - four years before coming to power - the government realized that the agricultural sector, the main provider of jobs in the country, could not produce enough jobs for a constantly growing population, analyzes Arkebe Oqubay, one of the architects of The strategy.
According to the World Bank, two million new people enter the job market in Ethiopia, one of the continent's fastest growing economies, every year.
But despite the efforts, the manufacture still represents only around 10% of the country's economic activities.
The flagship project of Hawassa Park, a site bringing together 52 American, European and Asian textile factories, opened in 2017. Around 30,000 workers sew t-shirts and sportswear around the clock.
Twenty-nine more industrial parks are slated to open across the country by the end of the year, in sectors like machine manufacturing and information and communication technology, notes Arkebe.
This policy has already borne fruit: foreign direct investment reached 4.3 billion dollars (3.9 billion euros) in 2017, four times more than five years ago.
- The lowest paid in the world -
But low wages remain in the spotlight.
Hawassa workers are the lowest paid textile workers in the world, with a base salary of 23.4 euros, according to the Stern Center.
Earning so little is not uncommon in a country that has not established a minimum wage. But workers say they can barely afford to buy food, travel, and pay their rent. Even by sharing tiny apartments where they take turns sleeping according to their schedules.
Eight months after resigning, Zemen Zerihun still has no job, but has no regrets. He prefers to return to cultivate the land on the family farm rather than toil at the factory which initially represented for him the hope of social advancement.
The same goes for Medihant Fehene, who also left work at Hawassa.
"I had to get up to take the bus at 5.30 a.m. to start work at 6.00 a.m., or if I had an afternoon timetable, I would not come back until 11.30 p.m., when it was dark and it wasn’t 'safer for a woman to be outside,' she says.
Moving from agriculture to manufacturing is complicated for these workers, notes Tony Kao, a manager of JP Textile.
"It took time just for them to learn industrial work," he says. "Now they have to arrive on time, learn new skills, how to use machines. It's a new chapter in their lives."
The government has tried to address employee frustrations, for example by giving land to businesses to build dormitories on subsidized rents, said Arkebe.
But this civil servant, now the Prime Minister's special adviser, defends low wages, which he believes encourage investments in Ethiopia rather than in countries where the manufacturing sector is more established.
- Organize the workers -
"If wages are high and investments fail, there will be no job creation," he argues. "Workers' livelihoods can improve with their productivity," says Arkebe, referring to the industrialization process in England and the United States.
The bosses of the textile sector find their account. "Ethiopia is the future of clothing. Everyone is looking around here now," enthuses Raghavendra Pattar, director of Nasa Garment Plc in Hawassa.
In Hawassa, nobody really represents workers - apart from workers' councils considered as a tool for controlling bosses over employees.
But the Confederation of Ethiopian Trade Unions plans to start organizing them early this year, according to its vice-president Ayalew Ahmed. "If employers accept unions in the company, it will be good. Otherwise, they will be established outside."
The government supports the right of workers to organize as long as this process does not cause too much disruption, warns Finance Minister Eyob Tekalign Tolina.
Meanwhile, at Hawassa, the turnover continues.
One recent morning, AFP saw dozens of candidates lining up to pass needle threading or nail-laying tests.
In the industrial park, Tekle Baraso Bonsa, 22, interrupts his work for a moment to dye woolen threads to explain that he is saving to study at university and that the around 30 euros he earns at the are its best option.
"If I didn't do that, I would be shining shoes."
© 2020 AFP