Red Pepper » Mohamed-Salah Omri

Can Tunisia’s labour union ride to the rescue?

admin — Fri, 13 Sep 2013 15:39:47 +0000

Tunisia is gripped by its most serious political crisis since 2011, caused by a breakdown of trust between the government and its opponents and compounded by growing terrorism and a collapsing economy. Last weekend saw a rise in tension, with protestors filling the capital demanding the immediate resignation of the Islamist government.
Yet one local trade union may save the day, and not for the first time. The Tunisian General Union of Labour (UGTT) has affected the character of Tunisia as a whole since the late 1940s. It impacted significantly the 2011 revolution and the transition period and is likely to impact the future. Its current role as mediator between the government and opposition must be seen in historical perspective, as, arguably, the role of Tunisia’s labour movement is what sets it apart from the rest of the Arab World.
Child of protest, midwife of revolution
Trade unionism in Tunisia goes back to 1924 when Mohamed Ali al Hammi (1890-1928), the forefather of the movement, founded the General Federation of Tunisian Workers. But it was under the guidance of the charismatic and visionary Farhat Hached (1914-1952) that a strong home-grown organization would emerge. Hached learned union activism and organisation within the French colonial union, the CGT, for 15 years before splitting from it to start UGTT in 1946. The new union quickly gained support, clout and international ties, which it used to pressure the French for more social and political rights for Tunisia and to consolidate its position as a key component in the national liberation movement. The union’s inception in the midst of an independence struggle cemented its political character, a line it has kept and vigorously defended ever since.
Since then, UGTT has been a continuous presence in the country. During the one-party rule of Presidents Habib Bourgiba and Ben Ali, it constituted a credible alternative to the party’s power and a locus of resistance to it, so much so that being a unionist became a euphemism for being a member of the opposition.
Given UGTT’s power and popularity, successive governments have tried to compromise with, co-opt, repress or change the union, depending on political sympathies and the balance of power at hand. In 1978, the Bourguiba government attempted to change a union leadership judged to be too oppositional and powerful. The entire leadership of the union was put on trial and replaced by regime loyalists. Ensuing popular riots were repressed by the army, resulting in dozens of deaths. The cost was the worst setback to the union’s history since the assassination of its founder in 1952.
UGTT has been the outcome of Tunisian resistance and its incubator at the same time. In December 2010, UGTT – particularly its teachers’ unions and local offices – became the headquarters of revolt against the President. Many of the demands of the rising masses – jobs, national dignity, freedom – had long been on the agenda of the union, which includes 24 regional unions, 19 sector-based unions and 21 grass roots unions and has over 500,000 members. Furthermore, the union holds a strong support-base in the rural areas where the revolution started.
But after the revolution was complete, UGTT again became a target. On 4 December 2012, as the union was gearing up to commemorate the 60^th anniversary of Hached’s assassination, its iconic headquarters were attacked, allegedly by groups known as Leagues for the Protection of the Revolution. The incident was ugly, public and of immediate impact. The leagues had originated in community organisations set up in the aftermath of the January 14 revolution to keep the peace in the security vacuum left which had reportedly become dominated by Islamists. UGTT responded by boycotting plenary sessions of parliament, organising regional strikes and marches, and eventually calling for a general strike on 13 December, the first such action since 1978.
Threats have also come from those on the inside. On August 26, 2013, a group of trade unionists founded the Tunisian Labour Organization, aiming, according to its leaders, at correcting the direction of UGTT. Sami Tahri, the UGTT spokesperson responded dismissively to this move, arguing that this was no more than the reaction of losers who failed to win elected offices in UGTT and were unable to drag the union into the “house of obedience”, referring to the new organisation’s ties to the ruling Al-Nahda party. This lack of concern may be justified, given UGTT’s history of warding off a number of attempts at takeover, division or weakening over the past sixty years or so.
Qualified mediator
Despite antagonistic relations with governments before and after the revolution, UGTT remains perhaps the only body in the country qualified to resolve disputes peacefully. After January 2011, it emerged as the key mediator and power broker at the initial phase of the revolution, winning trust from political players across the spectrum. It was within the union that the committee which regulated the transition to the elections of 23 October 2011 was formed.
At the same time, UGTT has used its leverage to secure historic victories for its members and for workers in general, including permanent contracts for over 350,000 temporary workers and pay rises for several sectors, including teachers.
As Tunisia moved from a period of revolutionary harmony to one characterised by a multiplicity of parties and a polarisation of public opinion, the challenge for UGTT was to keep its engagement in politics without falling under the control of a particular party or indeed turning into one. But, due to historical reasons which saw leftists channel their energy into trade unionism when their political activities were curtailed, UGTT has remained on the left of the political spectrum. This has continued in the face of rising Islamist power, with the union keeping or even strengthening ties with the numerous newly-formed parties of the left. For these reasons, UGTT has remained decidedly outside the control of the Islamist government, which has had to come to terms with the union’s role and status.
UGTT has a significant role to play in the current political crisis, acting as a mediator between government and opposition in an attempt to end the current political stalemate. Many of the protestors’ demands line up with those of UGTT: the resignation of the current government, its replacement by a non-political government, curtailing the work of the Tunisian Parliament, the ANC, and reviewing top government appointments. It also asks for the immediate dissolution of the Leagues for the Defence of the Revolution.
Cracks in the armour
UGTT is not without blemish. A key paradox has been the relative absence of women in positions of leadership, despite the organisation’s support of women’s rights. UGTT compares unfavourably in this respect to other civil society organisations, with women leading the Business Association, the Journalists Association and the Council of Judges. Although some have suggested that the nature of trade union work, including canvassing opinion in the male-dominated cafes of Tunisia, has put women off positions, UGTT’s failure to promote women in leadership is a serious lacuna.
The union has also been accused of over-bureaucratisation and corruption at the top level, which has triggered several attempts at internal reform and even rebellion over the years. The power and money that come as perks of the job for top union officials can be dangerous in a climate of rife corruption. In 2000, former Secretary General Ismail Sahbbani resigned over allegations of embezzlement and financial misconduct.
UGTT also faces future challenges if it is to remain the strongest union at a time when three other split unions are in place and to maintain a political role now that politics has been largely turned over to political parties.
But despite these challenges, a combination of symbolic capital accumulated over decades, a good record of getting results for its members and well-oiled organisational apparatus across the country and in every sector of the economy has made UGTT an unavoidable, and perhaps unassailable, feature of Tunisian politics. For these reasons, UGTT figures are still capable of credible mediation despite setbacks, with their demonstrable expertise and experience placing them above most accusations of bias. UGTT is a defining element of what may be called the Tunisian exception in the MENA region and, if the trade union is successful this time in resolving the political crisis, it would become even more exceptional.
This article was first published at Think Africa Press

Tunisia’s poet and politician: who was Chokri Belaid?

admin — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 19:18:44 +0000

Since opposition figure Chokri Belaid was assassinated, Tunisia has been thrown into total turmoil. Political violence is rare in Tunisia, so the assassination targeting a household name and performed in such spectacular style – Belaid was shot four times at point blank range by an unknown gunman outside his home – shook Tunisians to the core.

Following news of his death, protesters took to the streets of Tunis, clashing with police and calling for the fall of the regime. President Moncef Marzouki flew straight back to Tunisia, cutting short his visit to France and cancelling his trip to Egypt. Four Tunisian opposition groups met in an historic and unprecedented meeting and announced their withdrawal from the national assembly. Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali said he would dissolve the government and install a small cabinet of technocrats in its place until elections. And al-Nahda, the ruling Islamist party and the party of which the prime minister is a member, rejected Jebali’s proposed dissolution.

This has truly been one of the longest 24 hours in Tunisian politics. The scale of the response against al-Nahda and the new unified stance of the opposition could prove to be a turning point in Tunisian politics. All this was triggered by the death of the 49-year-old lawyer and secretary general of the Unified Patriotic Democratic Party (UPDP). But who was he?

Student activist in the 1980s, civil rights advocate since the 1990s and prominent anti-Ben Ali figure, Belaid became a household name from January 2011, peering through the television screens almost daily, with his trade mark thick moustache, fluent speech and forceful opinions. He was smeared by Imams in mosques as being an atheist (‘kafir’); accused of being an informant for former president Ben Ali; blamed for instigating strikes and demonstrations by the government; and satirised in comedies and on social media.

At the same time, he was – just like his even more iconic friend and fellow leftist, Hamma Hammami – “humanised” to the general public through human interest stories such as television visits to his home and appearances on social programmes and even in Ramadan entertainment shows. In addition, Belaid was a burgeoning poet before devoting himself to politics. He often quoted the literary tradition at will and spoke flawless Arabic. For these reasons, he could not be accused of being the traditional uprooted Francophile secularist or the customary dogmatic Marxist.

And like in life, his tragic death also had poetic overtones. His assassination was foretold in more than the many threats he received, publicly and in private, and as a poet, he is best remembered for a poem dedicated to Husain Muruwa, the Lebanese intellectual assassinated by Islamists in the late 1990s.

Along with his popular appeal, Belaid maintained a strong line against neoliberal policies and vociferously opposed many Islamist ideas. His message as well as his profile seem to have resonated well with the core values of the revolution: work, dignity and freedom. His line of thought and action ran through Tunisian politics largely through the potent and ubiquitous Tunisian General Union of Labour (UGTT) in which the Tunisian left has maintained a strong presence at the regional as well as national levels. The same is true of the student movement, which Belaid led and in which he had his training as an activist.

His appeal also has been complemented by a rather traditional leftist profile: he lived in a rented apartment with his wife and two young daughters; he did not own a car; he spoke the dialect of the interior regions of the country and avoided glamorous and rich circles.

Behind Belaid’s personal and activist story lies the complex and compelling story of the Tunisian left as a whole. Responses to his death may well mark the end of the line for Islamist politics as we know it in Tunisia. It may also mark the rise of a unified opposition, which now realises that its fight is not only, or no longer, for freedom of expression and association, but an existential one – a matter of survival.

If Belaid was a thorn in the side of the al-Nahda, the Salafis and the government during his life, he is likely to be a decisive nail in their coffin now that he is dead. The split emerging between prime minister Jebali and al-Nahda is perhaps the start of this trend. But amidst this still-developing situation, one thing is now a reality: Tunisia, which prided itself on peaceful politics, is no longer an exception in the region.

This article was first published by Think Africa Press.