Fackson Shamenda is President of the Zambian Congress of Trade Unions, and President of the ICFTU, and also UNI-Africa Regional Secretary. On April 7, 2000, at its first meeting following the ICFTU’s 17th World Congress (Durban, South Africa), the ICFTU Executive Board elected Fackson Shamenda as the Confederation’s President.
Fackson Shamenda – Zambia
The third ICFTU President to come from a developing country, he replaces LeRoy Trotman (Barbados) and Dr P.P. Narayanan (Malaysia). He is, however, the first African trade unionist to hold the ICFTU post.
Fackson Shamenda is currently also President of the Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) and the Africa Regional Secretary for Union Network International (UNI).
Born in 1950, Fackson Shamenda, from Zambia, joined the trade union movement as an activist in 1971 following high school and university studies. The Posts & Telecommunication Corporation of Zambia, where he was working full time, provided him the opportunity to demonstrate his leadership qualities and in 1979 became the General Secretary of the National Union of Communication Workers.
It was also at that time that he became active at the national level within the Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU).
His involvement with the international trade union movement began in 1982 when he became the representative of the Postal, Telegraph and Telecommunications International (PTTI) for East, Central and Southern Africa. From 1994 to 1999, he was appointed as Africa representative for the PTTI, which later changed its name to Communications International (CI). In January 2000, following the merger of CI, FIET, IGF and MEI to form Union Network International (UNI), he was elected as the first African Regional Secretary.
At the sub-regional level, he held the position of President of the Southern Africa Trade Union Co-ordination Council from 1991 to 1994.
Fackson Shamenda succeeded the outgoing ZCTU President Frederick Chiluba when the latter was elected President of Zambia in 1991. Mr Shamenda is closely involved with the work of the ICFTU and its regional organisation for Africa, the ICFTU-AFRO, in his capacity as member of the Executive Board of both organisations since ZCTU’s affiliation to the ICFTU in November1991. (Read on Global Unions).
See also the following articles:
on Africa Recovery about dept relief;
one on ethical trade initiative.
about an Africal Mashall Plan;
links:
MOST ETHNO-NET AFRICA DATABASE;
WEF 2004;
ICSW;
WEF 2001, about inverstor’s whishes;
en français: