Seychelles Workers Federation Charts New Strategy With ILO for 2026-2030
📷 Photo: BiiJii via Wikimedia Commons, CC0
The Seychelles Federation of Workers’ Unions has opened a three day workshop with the International Labour Organisation to set out its strategic priorities for the 2026 to 2030 period, focusing on how the union movement will respond to new investment laws, evolving labour markets and emerging worker protections in Seychelles.
The workshop, hosted at the Seychelles Trading Company auditorium and facilitated by the ILO’s Office for Eastern and Southern Africa, brings together management executives from the two affiliates of the SFWU, the Seychelles Transport and General Workers Union and the Teachers, Medical and Public Service Employees Union, together with senior secretariat staff. The opening session was addressed by the General Secretary of the SFWU, Antoine Robinson, who said the workshop has come at a moment when the country’s economy is undergoing major transformation following the enactment of new laws and policies to attract more direct investment.
Mr Robinson said this transformation will bring new challenges for workers and their organisations, requiring the trade union movement to sharpen its advocacy, strengthen its collective bargaining capacity, and ensure that the rights of workers are protected as Seychelles opens up further to international capital. The strategic priorities being mapped over the three days align closely with the ILO Strategic Plan for 2026 to 2029, which sets out four priority areas for the organisation: inclusive and effective governance of work, full and productive employment and sustainable enterprises for decent work, equality and protection at work, and policy coherence for fair transitions.
The workshop is being coordinated by Mr Robinson himself and Maxwell Julie of the SFWU secretariat. Facilitators from the ILO are guiding participants through a structured assessment of the federation’s current membership base, the representativeness of its affiliates, its organisational capacity, and the legal framework governing trade union activity in Seychelles. The ILO’s longstanding country engagement with Seychelles, including its work on social protection floors and labour market governance, is documented on the ILO Seychelles country page, and the workshop will feed into a national strategy that the federation intends to publish later this year.
According to a 2025 paper published by the ILO, the social protection floor approach, which Seychelles adopted in principle through national policy reforms, supports formalisation, transitions to greener and climate resilient economies, and adaptation to demographic shifts such as population ageing. The SFWU strategic plan will draw on this analysis to inform its priorities on maternity protection, occupational safety and health, and the protection of vulnerable categories of workers.
The workshop will conclude on Friday with a draft strategy document that will be circulated to affiliates for consultation before adoption at a future SFWU congress. The federation’s leadership has indicated that the final strategy will be launched in the fourth quarter of 2026 and will be the first comprehensive plan adopted by the SFWU in over a decade.
Sources cited: International Labour Organization, ILO Strategic Plan for 2026 to 2029 (https://www.ilo.org/resource/conference-paper/gb/gb352/ilo%E2%80%99s-strategic-plan-2026%E2%80%9329); International Labour Organization, Seychelles country page (https://www.ilo.org/regions-and-countries/africa/seychelles); International Labour Organization, Building social protection floors for all: ILO global flagship programme, strategy for the third phase 2026 to 2030 (https://researchrepository.ilo.org/esploro/outputs/encyclopediaEntry/Building-social-protection-floors-for-all/995695266602676).
