skip to main |
skip to sidebar
 |
| Lassaad El Asmi |
The Tunisian General Labour Union (known by its French acronym UGTT) is perhaps the country’s strongest civil society organization. For decades preceding the democratic change in Tunisia, the UGTT played a major role in organizing and maintaining popular resistance to the dictatorship and continues to play a positive role in the democratic transition process started after January 2011.
While trying to maintain distance from political power in Tunisia and even despite tense and sometimes outright antagonistic relations with the various governments before and after the revolution, the UGTT was nevertheless always considered neutral enough and especially popular and powerful enough to resolve crises and settle disputes. During the months following the revolution of January 2011, the union played a central role in federating the various political players and creating a consensus for a peaceful democratic transition. Independent intellectuals as well as key players from a broad political spectrum found in the UGTT the perfect space to work out a consensual plan for the transition period which eventually led to the first popular and democratic elections in the country since its independence, those of 23 October 2011.
 |
| Ahmed Badawi |
There have been claims that Egyptian workers have been revolting against capitalism[1] but at a closer inspection of the pattern of workers’ protest, the various demands made by them and their mode of organisation do not substantiate such a claim. Activism by workers, in the decade preceding the January 25th, 2011 revolt, has been pivotal in paving the way for the overthrow of Egypt’s long-serving president Hosni Mubarak. In July 2013, the workers, together with millions of Egyptians, took to the streets again to demand the removal of Mohamed Morsi, the Islamist president, who was elected into office in June 2012. Otherwise, workers chose to go on localised, dispersed wildcat strikes and other forms of protest, demanding improvements in their conditions rather than the wholesale transformation of the system.
Egyptian labour: From compliance to revolt
The Egyptian labour force is approximately 26 million, in a country of more than 80 million inhabitants. However of those 26 million, only 6 million are members of trade unions, where half are members of the Egyptian Federation of Trade Unions (EFTU). The EFTU was decreed into existence by the Nasser regime in 1957, it is younger when compared to its Tunisian counterpart, the Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail (UGTT) established in 1946 upon the initiative of the Tunisian labour movement, and which has maintained its independence even during the authoritarian rule of Habib Bourguiba (1957-1987) and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali (1987-2011). Since then, Egyptian workers have been kept on a very tight leash. In the absence of independent trade unions, the EFTU became the only legal umbrella organisation for labour in Egypt.
 |
| Stan De Spiegelaere |
 |
| Ferdi De Ville |
With the upcoming European elections, political parties on the left like the Party of European Socialists, the European Left and the European Green party are paying lip service to the call for a European minimum wage policy (European Green Party, 2010; European Left, 2014; PES, 2012). Such a policy would serve as a first step in the development of a more social Europe, enhance the legitimacy of the Union and could contribute to a wage-driven growth model for Europe. In this column we do not go into detail about the economic and social aspects of such a policy, but focus on the campaigning for a European minimum wage. A European minimum wage policy would mean a radical shift in the policy orientation of the Union and by consequence, the campaign for such a policy will be long and exhausting. Luckily, the European left can learn from two very recent and largely successful minimum wage campaigns in Europe: Germany and Switzerland. In Switzerland the campaign is still running while in Germany the current coalition is planning to implement a legal minimum wage in 2015.
 |
| Karin A. Siegmann |
 |
| Peter Knorringa |
 |
| Jeroen Merk |
Globalisation of production has been accompanied by a rise of informal and insecure work across different regions of the world, even in formal establishments. Yet, the role of labour has received scant attention in both the governance and analyses of global production networks (GPNs). Therefore, activists and scholars have demanded a “sea-change in the international business model and the active participation of informed and empowered workers” (Brown 2013: 5) that needs to be flanked by an analytical framework that puts workers’ agency at the centre.
This has motivated us to analyse the Freedom of Association Protocol, a voluntary initiative (VI) that has been implemented in the Indonesian sportswear industry since 2011. In that year, Indonesian exports of leather and leather goods peaked, generating more than 230 million USD in revenues (Statistics Indonesia 2014: 107). Overall, more than 600,000 workers were employed in the footwear industry in the same year, including production for the domestic market (CCC 2014). In export factories manufacturing footwear for Nike alone, one of the largest foreign buyers, more than 128,000 workers are currently employed, the vast majority of which are women workers (Nike 2014).
 |
| Frank Hoffer |
Sitting in nice wine bars or cosy restaurants in superbly gentrified inner city areas, the chattering liberal middle class expresses its disgust about the xenophobic under-classes turning against migrants and voting for right-wing populist parties. Being a member of the chattering class myself I fully share these feelings. The populist migrant bashing makes me furious. A Portuguese lady comes once a week cleaning our house, a Moroccan craftsman does all repair work at our place, a French lady does the ironing, the Bangladeshi dish washer helps to keep prices down in the local Italian restaurant, the coffee at work is served by migrants from Africa, and workers from Eastern Europe clean my office. Thanks to the housing bubble only well-to-do middle class people can afford to live in our neighbourhood, our kids go to a private school and, being a well-paid civil servant at the UN, cheap migrant workers do not compete for my job. Indeed, I have the great pleasure to work in a diverse multicultural and multiracial environment of similarly well-paid and privileged people. Actually I am an “elite migrant” myself who left his own country out of choice to take on exciting jobs in other countries. In short it is easy and cheap for me to be the nice and tolerant cosmopolitan criticising dumb xenophobia as I have all the benefits and none of the disadvantages of mass immigration.
