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Postal workers from trade unions in the Middle East/North Africa are building a network to help develop decent jobs and to work with the new governments in the region to make better postal services.



Postal Workers unions from several Middle East and North African countries, met at UNI Global Union in Nyon, Switzerland to share their experiences with the "Arab Spring" and to discuss how they could work to build better postal services and decent jobs in the region. They shared their experiences with the role of trade unions in fighting to support the revolutions in their countries and agreed to work together to help others in the region to develop decent governments and to rebuild their public services such as postal services.



The unions also pledged to work to support democracy and the rights of workers to join unions and to bargain collective contracts that are properly recognised by postal companies operating in the region. They also discussed the influence of the WTO, the World Bank and the IMF to try and use the new dawn in the region to promote their versions of liberalisation and privatisation and how unions must work to maintain decent publically owned postal services delivering a universal affordable and quality postal service.



There was much discussion about how to carry out this pledge and to build an action plan to fight any hints of privatisation of their postal companies.



The unions also agreed to develop networks of young postal workers and women postal workers to build on the momentum established in the region during the "Arab Spring" and to harness the energy of young people and women to fight for decent jobs a proper sharing of wealth. The meeting agreed that a key to this would be recognition of workers rights and trade union rights and they agreed to build campaigns in their countries to fight for respect for these rights.



An important issue that was discussed was the newly established regional body of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) which now represented all countries in the region, called Postal Euromed. This organisation of postal administrations and governments in the Mediterranean region had been approached and close ties were being developed with the objective of building training programmes together and activities to develop modern viable postal services in the region. The participants supported an action plan and strategy to work towards a Global Agreement with Postal Euromed.



The unions also discussed with the Palestinian postal workers present from PalTel, the postal and telecom union, how to support their efforts to gain recognition of an independent Palestinian State and to build an economically viable postal service in Palestine, delivering postal services and postal financial service to the Palestinian people.



They also heard about the efforts of the Moroccan postal workers to get proper wages and conditions for the workers in the more than 1000 rural post offices in Morocco where workers are not entitled to a proper wage or any social benefits such as pensions or health services. They participants agreed on a solidarity motion with the Moroccan workers and to work to support the struggle.



Support was also pledged for Telecom workers in Tunisia who are on a sir in to demand an end to the corruption in the company during the Ben Ali regime and to be part of negotiations to guarantee a proper future for Tunisie Telecom.



The meeting also sent a message of solidarity to the Canadian Union of Postal Workers to support them in their imminent strike.



A strategy and action plan was developed as part of the meeting and will be shared with other postal workers in the region to develop proper dialogue and networks amongst them to support the development of a modern postal service providing decent jobs. Also to fight for workers rights in the postal industry including the multinationals currently operating in the region such as DHL, TNT, FedEx, UPS and DPD/Geopost,