About UPASU

UPASU stands for Unversity Professional and Academic Staff Union. This is an organisation formed and registered on December 29, 2006 by concerned academic and professional employees of public and private universities to champion the rights and interests of university academic and professional staff as well as other stakeholders.

The union was formed pursuant to article 40 of the 1995 constitution which gives every worker the right to form and join a trade union of his or her choice to promote his or her economic and social interests (and to engage) in collective bargaining.” The formation of UPASU was additionally in pursuance of the Kampala declaration whose articles 2 and 10 stipulate as follows:

Article 2: Every African intellectual shall be entitled to the respect of all his or her civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights as stipulated in the International Bill of Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights.

Article 10: All members of the intellectual community shall have the freedom of association, including the right to form and join trade unions. The right of association includes the right of peaceful assembly and formation of groups, clubs and national and international associations.

The above provisions were operationalised by the Labour Unions Act of 2006 which among others spells out the rights of workers to form unions (section 3) and prohibits employers from interfering with union formation (section 3) or victimizing anyone engaged in forming a union or engages in union activities (section 4). The Act also makes it an offence for any employer (public or private) to stifle union formation (section 5).

For government universities, the Public Service (Negotiation, Consultative and Disputes Settlement Machinery) Act – 2008 strengthened the hand of unions in government organisations by making it mandatory for all government bodies to have consultative committees with a national negotiation and consultative council at the apex to negotiate and or consult on all issues affecting employees. These committees and council are backed by a public service tribunal mandated to hear and arbitrate any disputes and make binding awards in the same manner a civil court would do.  

The above provisions have hence provided an institutional framework for professional and academic staff of universities to harmoniously negotiate and consult with their employers and reach binding agreements enforceable under the law. The arbitration and conciliation channels provided under the above framework will additionally enable resolution of disputes without injuring the interests of the various stakeholders of universities.

Worldwide, university employees have reaped immense benefits from forming unions because unlike associations, they are not only backed by the law which provides for binding agreements as discussed above but they also have the United Nations provisions under the International Labour Organisation (ILO) behind them.

For the formative years allowed under the law, the UPASU interim executive has developed a number of instruments and also gathered information to enable the formation of branches and holding of a delegates’ conference. We are now in the position to hold a national delegates’ conference on December 31, 2010 at the Ministers Village Hotel Ntinda starting at 9.00am. At this conference the national leadership will be elected and various structures set up.

Isaac Wanzige Magoola (PhD)
Interim General Secretary (UPASU)