Monday, December 17, 2012

Tunisia government narrowly and temporarily averts the first general strike by UGTT (labour's main body) since 1978

This blog advocates for Christian labour organization everywhere that action in accord with such a vision may be possible, at least to some realistic extent.  Tunisia is not such a country.  Rather, in Tunisia I woud imagine most Christians (who usually are the base of new Christian unions of workers, but not absolutely necessarily, since persons of all creeds or none may join as members upon their free choice) woud be supporting Tunisia's UGTT which is decidedly a gently secularist party.  UGTT is not and can not be hostile to Islam, as Muslim's make up the majority of the population.

On the key demographics of Islam in Tunisia, Wikipedia says:


Islam is the official state religion in Tunisia. Approximately 98 percent of the population of Tunisia is nominally Muslim. Most of them are Sunni belonging to the Malikitemadhhab, but a small number of Ibadhi Muslims (Kharijites) still exist among the Berber-speakers of Jerba Island. There is no reliable data on the number of practicing Muslims. There is a small indigenous Sufi Muslim community; however, there are no statistics regarding its size. Reliable sources report that many Sufis left the country shortly after independence when their religious buildings and land reverted to the Government (as did those of Orthodox Islamic foundations). Although the Sufi community is small, its tradition of mysticism permeates the practice of Islam throughout the country. During annual Ramadan festivals, Sufis provide public cultural entertainment by performing religious dances. The Constitution declares Islam the official state religion and stipulates that the President must be a Muslim
The government controls and subsidizes mosques and pays the salaries of prayer leaders. The President appoints the Grand Mufti of the Republic. The 1988 Law on Mosques provides that only personnel appointed by the Government may lead activities in mosques and stipulates that mosques must remain closed except during prayer times and other authorized religious ceremonies, such as marriages or funerals. Police stations will often be found near mosques.[1]. Some people maybe interrogated just for associating or being seen in the street with practising Muslims. New mosques may be built in accordance with national urban planning regulations; however, upon completion, they become the property of the Government. The Government also partially subsidizes the Jewish community.  [From another Wikipedia article:]  Judaism is the country's third largest religion with 1,500 members.[1] One-third of the Jewish population lives in and around the capital, and is descended predominantly from Italian and Spanish immigrants.[1] The remainder lives on the island of Djerba, where the Jewish community dates back 2,500 years.  [This article puts the Muslim population at 99%, and tells us further that Christianity is represented in the country by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Tunis the population of which is 25,000 dispersed thru-out the country, and 2,000 practicising Protestant Christians, which number includes a few hundred citizens who have converted to Christ Jesus.  The Reformed Church of France maintains a church in Tunis, with a congregaton of 140 primarily foreign members."]

Okay, then, the UGTT is made up leftists in the leadership, perhaps some communists of one kind or another (following patterns in France, perhaps), but everyone to the left of the party that controls the government is, in Tunisia, "leftist," and at least nominally Muslim, tho some in UGTT leadership and ranks may be well acclimated in the state-run mosques with state-paid clergy, while others may be allergic to that kind of Islam precisely.  For all these reasons, and for UGTT's history of internal democracy and advocy of greater democracy in Tunisian government and civil society, I think that Christian labour advocacy shoud endorse the General Union of Tunisian Workers, not necessarily its proposed but averted general strike, and shoud encourage Christians with a sense of Christ-serving labour-organizational membership and leadership to work in and with their Muslim neibours in the UGTT.

-- Albert Gedraitis


ThinkAfricaPress (Dec17,2k12)

General Strike in Tunisia: Averted, For Now

With relations souring between Al-Nahda, Tunisia's ruling party, and the UGTT, the country's main trade union, both sides may be facing their toughest tests yet.




Before the draft agreement yesterday [Dec11,2k12] between the Tunisia’s main trade union and the government, Tunisia had been preparing to experience only its first general strike since 1978.
The nationwide strike that had been planned for tomorrow, December 13, appears to have been averted for now. But to understand the current situation today, one must get to grips with the dynamics of its labour movement historically. Successive governments have tried to compromise with, co-opt, repress or change its workers' union, depending on the situation and the balance of power at hand.

Politically involved from the start

In 1978, the General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT) went on general strike to protest against President Habib Bourguiba government’s move to change a union leadership judged to be too oppositional and too powerful. The cost was the worst setback in the union’s history since the assassination of its founder, the legendary Farhat Hached, in 1952. 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.
In a few years, however, the UGTT would rise gain and continue to play a crucial role as a locus of resistance and refuge for activists of all orientations, up to the present time. The UGTT has been the outcome of Tunisian resistance and its incubator since it was established in 1946.
In the midst of the struggle for liberation from French colonialism, the union was politically involved from the start, a line it has kept and guarded vigorously since. In 1984, it aligned itself with rioters during the bread revolt. In 2008, it was the main catalyst of the disobedience movement in the mining basin of Gafsa. And by December 2010, UGTT, particularly its teachers’ unions and some regional executives, became the headquarters of the revolt against Ben Ali.

The force to beat

After January 2011, the UGTT emerged as the key mediator and power broker at the initial phase of the revolution, when all political orientations trusted and needed it. And it was within the union that the committee which regulated the transition to the elections was formed. At the same time, the UGTT 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 education.
Despite various lacunae, UGTT remained democratic throughout. All its bodies were elected freely, even as dictatorship continued to be consolidated over the country as a whole. A combination of symbolic capital of resistance accumulated over decades, a record of results for its members, and a well-oiled machine at the level of organisation across the country and every sector of the economy, made UGTT unassailable and unavoidable at the same time.
But it also became the force to beat for anyone intent on gaining wider control in Tunisia; the UGTT became central as Tunisia moved from the period of revolutionary harmony in which the UGTT played host and facilitator, to a political and even ideological phase characterised by a plurality of parties and polarisation of public opinion.
The UGTT was challenged 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, and partly because of the nature of trade unionism in a country such as Tunisia, the UGTT remained on the left side of politics and, in the face of rising Islamist power, became a place where the left, despite its many newly-formed parties, kept its ties and even strengthened them.
It is no secret that the top leadership of the UGTT is largely leftist, or at least progressive in the wide sense of the term. For these reasons, the UGTT remained strong and decidedly outside the control of Islamists. This was not for lack of trying, through courtship initially, appeasement afterwards, and finally coercion.

Attacked but not beleaguered

On December 4, 2012, as the union was gearing up to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the assassination of its founder, its iconic headquarters, Place Mohamed Ali, was attacked by groups known as Leagues for the Protection of the Revolution. The incident was ugly, public and had an immediate impact. These leagues, which originated in community organisations in cities across the country, were designed to keep order and security immediately after Ben Ali’s fall on January 14, 2011, but were later disbanded, and are now dominated by Islamists of various orientations.
They have been targeting the media, artists and members of the former regime under slogans such as purification or “cleansing of the old regime” and “protection of the revolution”. One prominent action was their violent attack against the party Nida Tounes, headed by former Prime Minister Beji Caid el Sebsi, which resulted in the first political killing after the revolution, that of Nida member Lotfi Nagadh in the southern town of Tataouine.
The attack, which was the latest in a series of actions, such as throwing rubbish at UGTT offices in several regions a few months ago, recalled the atmosphere of 1978 and another affront to the union’s existence. It responded by boycotting the government, organising regional strikes and marches, and eventually calling for the general strike.
For the first time, UGTT spoke out against the ruling Islamist Al-Nahda party and declared it an enemy, despite stating on many occasions professing neutrality. Anti-Al-Nahda parties and individuals are now backing UGTT. In Tunisia, contradictions have suddenly sharpened, not unlike the situation in Egypt, where President Mohammed Morsi managed to unite warring opposition groups against his party when he gave himself sweeping powers.
Tunisia today stands divided, with the UGTT on one side and Al-Nahda on the other. If history is any guide, the UGTT will prevail this time as well. What is in doubt is the cost to a revolution plagued by a set of circumstances and developments largely beyond the control of the country.
This is also Al-Nahda’s toughest test, internally and internationally. Internally, UGTT is forcing a rift between the government and the party which dominates it by challenging the former to protect a national organisation and apply the rule of law. Internationally, UGTT has already laid bare the paramilitary nature of the Leagues as a danger to social peace in Tunisia on one hand, and rallied the union’s powerful friends in the international labour movement on the other.
Tomorrow’s general strike appears to have been averted, but with everyone involved in one way or another, we could yet see a collision of titanic proportions.