Middle East-North Africa: growing union visibility

Veröffentlicht: 23 September 2008
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Workshop session



Amman meeting of global unions and FES foundation



Roland Schneider, TUAC



UNI's Nasreddine Sassi and Raul Requena

 Raising the visibility of trade unions in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) is a key objective for global union federations.

GUFs - including UNI global union - are building a growing presence in the MENA region and are working closely with the FES foundation, Germany.

UNI took a significant step last year with the opening of an office for the Middle East and North Africa in Tunis with a MENA coordinator Nasreddine Sassi.

At the annual meeting between global unions and FES - held in Amman on 22-23 September - building stronger and more visible unions were key priorities in helping to strengthen collective bargaining and win improvements in pay and conditions.

The meeting spotlighted continuing work on gender issues, involving more women and young people in unions and tackling union rights for the large number of migrant workers in the region - often legally excluded from joining unions.

Greater research and mapping of industrial relations in the MENA region were also discussed.



“We still have a long way to go to win trade union rights across this region,” said UNI Assistant General Secretary Raul Requena in Amman.

“We have to do much more in basic trade union education to help unions in their dealings with the multinationals - the region is a major target for the multinationals.

“And if we are to build stable democracies we have to bring decent work to young people in countries where their unemployment currently ranges from 37-73 per cent.”

UNI has 34 affiliates in 10 of the 19 MENA countries, covering finance, graphical, media and entertainment (MEI), post and logistics, telecom, commerce, social security and professional and managerial workers.

Roland Schneider from the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD briefed the meeting on the OECD Guidelines for the behaviour of multinationals that can be a tool for unions in dealing with foreign companies that break the rules.

Many unions in the region are still unaware of the revised Guidelines with its system of National Contact Points (usually in government ministries) to resolve complaints.



UNI and FES held a workshop for Graphical unions in Amman last month that launched a union network for the region. Next month finance unions will meet in Tunis, to be followed by workshops for unions in finance in Algeria and for media and entertainment in Cairo in November.

A four-year UNI project to look at migration, decent work and union visibility will also be launched in November in Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco, Senegal and Tunisia. It’s being financed by ISCOD Spain with the assistance of affiliates UGT and CC.OO and will cover workers in finance, graphical, IBITS, post and logistics and telecom.



A UNI Arabic website run from Tunis is in the planning stage along with a regular Arabic version of the monthly UNIbulletin that gives a snapshot of activities around the global union.

“One of the clear messages to emerge in Amman is that many unions in the region operate without a regional or a global dimension,” said Nasreddine Sassi. “We want to connect unions in MENA with other unions across the MENA region and around the world.”