We begin in Mombasa where, in 1947, workers staged a general strike. Over 10,000 people gathered in a field they called Kiwanja cha Maskini and demanded dignified living and working conditions from the colonial administration.

Today, the Mombasa port is being contested for privatisation. Dockworkers seem to have no power over their fate, no voice or choice beyond entreating politicians to act on their behalf. What happened? What happened to the militant, powerful unions of the pre-independence era? How did we get to today, where the image of "workers unions" in Kenya conjures images like that of COTU, where union leaders seem to be a part of the capitalist elite they were meant to oppose?