Working in the slaughterhouse: Tanganyika Packers Ltd., from colonialism to collapse, 1947–2014

Abstract

Between 1947 and 1975, Tanganyika Packers Ltd (TPL) was Tanzania’s only export-oriented slaughterhouse and beef-canning factory, a branch of UK-based Liebig’s Extract of Meat Corporation (Lemco), which originated in 1860s Uruguay. Until shortly before TPL was nationalized in 1974, it was a profitable parastatal, employing some 1200 workers, anchoring a working-class community, and providing an outlet for indigenous Tanzanian cattle from open rangelands. While nationalization aimed to capture the full value of TPL profits and expand exports into the European Economic Community, it instead severed TPL from the world market when Lemco withdrew its marketing license. Worker layoffs followed, and TPL became primarily a domestic supplier of military rations, creating precarious working conditions, until the factory was shuttered in 1993. Although technically TPL still exists, this article contends that, far from being a victim of a post-cold war neo-liberal transition, as is usually asserted, TPL’s fate is properly located in the period between 1967 and 1974, when state socialism in Tanzania created pressures on the parastatal and its workers to contribute to nation building, particularly by supplying fresh beef to the local butcher trade. This was coupled with a political ecology of disease and corruption, at a time of drought, villagization, and agro-pastoral resistance to market pressures, which prevented TPL from acquiring sufficient numbers of cattle in Africa’s third largest cattle country to take advantage of international beef scarcities in the early 1970s. Global pressures, especially disease controls and the OPEC oil embargo, frustrated TPL beef exports as the world economy moved from beef scarcity to a sudden glut by 1974.

Keywords:

• Meatpacking
• Tanganyika Packers Ltd
• Liebigs
• Tanzania
• nationalization
• livestock diseases
• drought

Acknowledgments

Research was aided by the staffs of the Unilever Archives in Port Sunlight; the British National Archives in Kew; and the Tanzania National Archives in Dar es Salaam. Research in Tanzania was done with permission of the Tanzanian Council for Science and Technology (COSTECH). This article was written in 2015–2016 at the International Research Center on Work and Human Lifecycle in Global History (re: work) at Humboldt University, Berlin. My thanks for encouragement and critical comments from (re: work) staff and fellows. This article is much improved from discussions with Elizabeth Bright Jones and Steven Kitingala; and from critiques of the editor and two anonymous reviewers of Labor History.

Notes

1. Tanzania National Archives, Dar es Salaam (TNA)/ACC 596/TPL/2, Lemco to TPL, March 29, 1966.

2. British National Archives, Kew (BNA)/CO 323/1299/3, Memorandum, n.d. [1934].

3. BNA/CO 852/16/8, Establishment of a Factory, 1936.

4. TNA/36841-II, TPL Meetings, 1950–1951.

5. TNA/ACC 596/TPL/4, Rogers to Skinner, February 21, 1966.

6. TPL, Kawe, Dar es Salaam, Company Minutes, February 18, 1955, 3.

7. TPL Minutes, October 8, 1969, Appendix B.

8. TPL Minutes, December 6, 1954, 1.

9. TPL Minutes, August 2, 1965, 4.

10. TPL Minutes, December 12, 1955, 5.

11. TNA/ACC 460/4/29/26, Broadhead-Williams to TPL, July 3, 1951; TPL to Labour Commissioner, December 31, 1951.

12. TPL Minutes, February 4, 1952, 4.

13. TPL Minutes, July 6, 1950, 3.

14. TPL Minutes, February 11, 1948, 3; TPL Minutes, February 9, 1950, 4; TNA/ACC460/4/49/26, Inspection Reports, February 25, 1950; Broadhead-Williams to TPL, July 3, 1951.

15. TPL Minutes, June 23, 1959, 4.

16. TPL Minutes, May 16, 1952, 4; TPL Minutes, March 13, 1956, 2.

17. TPL Minutes, March 13, 1956, 2.

18. TPL Minutes, December 12, 1955, 5; TPL Minutes, March 7, 1960, 1.

19. TPL Minutes, December 28, 1953, 6.

20. TNA/ACC/4/29/26/IV, Conditions of Service, October 15, 1960.

21. TNA/ACC 460/4/29/6/IV, Ration Scale, 1960; TNA/36,841/II, Tanganyika Packers, 1950–1951.

22. BNA/CO 323/1299/3, Memorandum, 1934, 10.

23. TNA/36841/II, Tangombe Estate, February 20, 1950.

24. TNA/36841/II, Memorandum on Hides and Skins, December 4, 1950.

25. TNA/ACC 460/4/29/26, Howard to General Manager, November 11, 1953; TPL to Labor Commissioner, November 13, 1953.

26. TPL Minutes, December 28, 1953, 6.

27. TPL Minutes, November 26, 1951, 3.

28. BNA/CO/852/573/3, Liebig’s to Colonial Office, February 7, 1945.

29. TNA/ACC 460/4/29/6/III, Richardson to TPL, October 29, 1958.

30. Unilever Archives (UA), Port Sunlight, U.K., Liebig’s Annual Reports, LEB 3/1, Director’s Report, August 31, 1954.

31. TPL Minutes, May 28, 1958, 2.

32. TNA/ACC 460/4/29/26, TPL to Labor Commissioner, November 13, 1953; TNA/ACC 460/4/29/26, Monthly Report, Labour Officer, April 1956; TNA/ACC 460/4/29/6/II, Wilmot to Labour Commissioner, May 3, 1956; TNA/ACC 460/4/29/6/II, Labour Officer to Wilmot, May 4, 1956; TNA/ACC 460/4/29/6/II, Stoppages of Work, May 5, 1956; TNA/ACC 460/4/29/6/II, Monthly Report, Labour Officer, May 1956; TNA/ACC 460/4/29/6/II, Labour Officer to Laborcom, May 29, 1956.

33. TNA/ACC 460/4/29/26/II, Annual Report, Senior Labor Officer, December 31, 1959.

34. TPL Minutes, November 18, 1971, 5.

35. TPL Minutes, October 21, 1970, 2.

36. TPL Guestbook, Factory Office, Kawe, Dar es Salaam.

37. TPL Minutes, December 13, 1973, 2.

38. UA/LEB 3/2 (1), Liebig’s Report, August 31, 1962.

39. TNA/ACC596/TPL/4, Rogers to Skinner, February 21, 1966; UA/LEB 3/2 (2): Liebig’s Report, August 31, 1967.

40. TPL Minutes, September 29, 1967, 4.

41. TPL Minutes, November 9, 1965, 2.

42. TNA/ACC596/6, Significance of Stock Routes.

43. TPL Minutes, July 5, 1968, 3.

44. TPL Minutes, March 29, 1968, 5.

45. TPL Minutes, April 6, 1972, 4.

46. TPL Minutes, October 8, 1969, 3.

47. TPL Minutes, April 6, 1972, 2; TPL Minutes, December 7, 1972, 1.

48. TPL Minutes, September 20, 1968, 3.

49. TPL Minutes, April 2, 1969, 3.

50. TPL Minutes, October 8, 1969, Appendix D.

51. TPL Minutes, October 8, 1969, Appendix C.

52. TPL Minutes, October 21, 1970, 4.

53. TPL Minutes, December 9, 1972, 2.

54. TPL Minutes, July 6, 1971, 3.

55. TPL Minutes, December 7, 1972, 1.

56. TPL Minutes, May 4, 1973, 4.

57. TPL Minutes, March 20, 1975, 1.

58. TNA/ACC 596 TPL Vol. 6, Significance of Stock Routes, 1.

59. TPL Minutes, March 14, 1974, 4.

60. TPL Minutes, March 20, 1975, 2–3.

61. TPL Minutes, March 20, 1975, 7.

62. TPL Minutes, December 19, 1978, 5.

63. TPL Minutes, Kielelezo M/4/A, October 5, 1976.

64. TPL Minutes, January 17, 1979, 4.

65. TPL Minutes, January 25, 1977, 2.

66. TPL Minutes, December 19, 1978, 7; June 16, 1980, 18; October 28, 1981, 6.

67. TPL Minutes, January 17, 1979, 4.

68. TPL interview, Kawe, May 27, 2016; TPL Minutes, May 14, 1979, 5.

69. TPL Minutes, May 14, 1979, 4; December 27, 1983, 2.

70. TPL Minutes, April 19, 1984, Company Audit, 15.

71. TPL Company Archives, FF.14/TPL/93, ‘Kuachishwa Kazi,’ October 22, 1993.