'Life is War'! Informal Transport Workers and Neoliberalism in Tanzania, 1998-2009

This article analyses how informal labourers fare under flexible labour markets and economic liberalization, through a case study of transport workers in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. It highlights the mainstream conceptualization of urban informality as self-employment and its influence on policy. The article stresses the importance of class differentiation in the Dar es Salaam transport sector and the predominance of informal wage employment, the uneven degree of power commanded by bus owners vis-`a-vis informal unskilled wage workers and the pernicious consequences of the lack of regulation of the employment relationship on the workforce itself and on society. It then interrogates the criminalization of the workforce and shows how labour over-supply, its fragmentation and geographical dispersion explain workers’ lack of response to their plight. The longitudinal study of the rise and fall (1998–2005) of a labour association within the sector further highlights the tensions among the workforce and the forms and limits of their solidarity. The conclusion of this study suggests some policy implications.