Description
Burundi, Bujumbura
High Commissioner
India, New Delhi
High Commissioner
Alfred Tandau served as a Minister of Labour and Social Services, appointed February 1972.
Background
Alfred Tandau was bor on January 6, 1936, at Ndegele in Mbinga district.
Education
Educated at Arusha, Old Moshi (1951-4) and Kasubi (1955-6) in Uganda.
Career
He started life as a cooperative inspector and a clerk with Barclays Bank, before working full time for the Transport and General Workers’ Union from September 1959 to February 1962. He rose fast in the trade union movement and in 1962 became deputy and later acting secretary-general of the Tanganyika Federation of Labour.
In February 1964, when the Tanzania unions were united under the National Union of Tanganyika Workers, NUTA, he remained deputy secretary- general and was returned to Parliament as a national seat member in December 1965.
In March 1968 he was appointed general manager of the Chinese-huilt Friendship Textile mill, and in February 1969 went back to trade unionism, this time as secretary-general of NUTA in the place of Michael Kamaliza, who was arrested, tried and convicted of treason.
Politics
Apart from holding the highest office in trade unions at home, he has always played a major part in the All African Trade Union Federation, AATUF, which has its headquarters in Dar es Salaam, with 25 different African countries' unions in affiliation. He was treasurer from 1966 to 1971 and elected acting secretary-general in February 1971.
A rash of strikes in Tanzanian industry in 1971 brought considerable criticism on NUTA for being too far apart from the workers. Even President Nyerere said that its operations should be re-examined. But Tandau continued to hold the post of secretary-general. He was also made Minister of Labour in the cabinet reshuffle of February 1972 at the expense of Job Lusinde, who had the Labour portfolio taken away from him, though he had earlier been one of the major critics of NUTA.