Tunisia’s Normal Labour Union (UGTT) is poised to tackle President Kais Saied in a protest scheduled for August 21.
The union known as for a protest in opposition to what it says are authorities makes an attempt to undermine staff’ rights, and using intimidation to curb strikes, referring to a three-day UGTT transport strike on the finish of July.
Since he seized energy on July 25, 2021, Saied has radically undermined the position of parliament and political events whereas granting himself vastly elevated powers by a structure revised based on his edicts.
But the UGTT’s capacity to mobilise its tons of of hundreds of members stands as one of many few remaining counters to Saied, analysts say.
“The UGTT has at all times been greater than only a commerce union,” Hamza Meddeb of the Carnegie Institute, who has written extensively on the organisation, advised Al Jazeera.
“It was established even earlier than Tunisian independence, and performed a major position in reaching that,” he mentioned of Tunisia’s liberation from France in 1956.
“Since then, it’s performed each an financial position … in addition to a political position, reminiscent of in 2015, when it was the principal pressure behind establishing the Nationwide Dialogue,” Meddeb continued, referring to a political disaster when the UGTT and three different civil society organisations helped forestall the collapse of Tunisia’s post-revolutionary democracy.
Inevitable confrontation
Issues reached a head between UGTT and Saied on August 7 when tons of of Saied’s supporters rallied outdoors UGTT headquarters, accusing it of “corruption” and “squandering individuals’s cash” after a three-day transport strike in late July paralysed a lot of the nation.
The next evening, Saied defended the anti-union protesters, repeating their requires union “accountability” and stressing that, opposite to claims from each the UGTT and rights teams, his supporters had not meant violence.
“There are recordsdata that have to be opened as a result of the individuals are demanding accountability … in order that their cash will be returned to them,” Saied mentioned in a video posted on the presidency’s official Fb web page.
Additional confrontations between the president and the union had been inevitable, however many analysts level to what they are saying is a union weakened by inner schisms and the risk to its decades-long monopoly on union energy in Tunisia.
“For the previous two years, the UGTT has been silent, definitely on the political aspect of issues,” a political analyst who remained in Tunisia advised Al Jazeera, on situation of anonymity.
“Saied even revised the labour code with out consulting them,” they mentioned of the Could choice to alter legal guidelines that affected lots of UGTT’s members.
“Beforehand, making a choice on that scale with out the UGTT would have been inconceivable,” he mentioned.
A weakened union
A lot of the UGTT’s comparatively low profile lies in an inner rupture, prompted by its choice in 2021 to increase its board’s mandate from two to 3 phrases, which is claimed to have splintered the union’s membership and undermined it.
“There are lots of within the UGTT who see the 2021 choice as a coup d’etat of the union’s personal, which has actually weakened the board’s choice to do something,” Meddeb mentioned.
“You can also’t keep away from the truth that the monetary scenario throughout the nation is getting a lot, a lot worse, which implies that the core membership of the union – the state-dependent center class – are additionally struggling, and are blaming a board they have already got little religion in for that, too.
“So, when Saied calls it a ‘corrupt union’ … that is sensible to a lot of its membership,” Meddeb mentioned.
“It’s additionally simple, [given its long history and close relationships with all of Tunisia’s past governments] for Saied to color it as a part of the nation’s elite that has been holding its individuals again,” he concluded.
A rival union emerges
Strikes to undermine the UGTT’s base are already below method.
On Monday, the federal government introduced it might halt the longstanding observe of permitting union officers to obtain their authorities salaries whereas on union enterprise, with extra such strikes anticipated.
Saied can be mentioned to be encouraging the rival Union of Tunisian Employees (UTT), which analysts reminiscent of creator Hatem Nafti say may attempt to reap the benefits of any weakening of the bond between the UGTT and its membership, to spice up its standing.
How profitable that will be in gentle of the UTT management’s earlier convictions on corruption fees, remained to be seen, he added.
That the UTT is able to step into any breach left by the UGTT was clear final week, when it issued an announcement accusing its rivals of what it mentioned was the “defamation” of the president.
Nafti mentioned that the federal government may additionally search to halt the observe of deducting UGTT membership charges from state staff’ salaries at supply earlier than transferring the funds to the union, which might give UTT extra hope of profitable members away from UGTT.
“That Kais Saied would transfer in opposition to the UGTT was written from day one,” Nafti advised Al Jazeera from Paris, the place he now lives.
“Populism doesn’t enable any mediator between the chief and the individuals, so firstly, he removed rival political events, then civil society and the media.
“Even the tv networks that assist him don’t present political programmes any extra,” he mentioned.
“The UGTT was the logical subsequent step.”
