Last year saw significant strikes in many sectors, including a general strike across the public sector in March which paralysed much of the economy. Three trade union federations (the Moroccan Labour Union, the Democratic Labour Federation, and the National Union of Moroccan Workers) called the strike, which was the culmination of months of escalating strikes by public sector workers over public sector pay.
Later in the year, textile workers took action against Mortanex, a subsidiary of UK-based firm Courtalds. In an echo of the Egyptian textile workers' militancy that laid some of the foundations for the current movement, over 1,000 workers (many of them women) took sit-in strike action after their bosses told them they were sacked. The textile industry represents around a third of Morocco's exports, but workers have suffered badly since the financial crisis with between 15,000 and 20,000 workers losing their jobs. Workers involved in the sit-in, which lasted over a month, said they suspected bosses of wanting to move production to China.
In January, dockers at a port in Tangier took strike action after four trade unionists were sacked. Bilal Malkawi of the International Transport Federation (the world umbrella body for transport workers' unions) said “Unions representing workers at APM [the company for whom the Tangier dockers worked] terminals around the world have sent letters of solidarity to the union. They have also written letters to the management in their own countries to protest against the local company’s actions in Tangier and to demand that the workers’ right to organise and bargain collectively be upheld in Tangier.”
Morocco's rulers fear that this industrial militancy could feed into a small but growing street movement. There have already been small protests organised in solidarity with the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions, including one organised by the anti-globalisation group ATTAC that mobilised hundreds.
Hundreds of people also demonstrated outside the Egyptian embassy, and on the same day 40 teachers - sacked in 2008 and out of permanent work since - attempted self-immolation. Several were hospitalised with serious injuries.
Many commentators are interpreting a recent trip of Moroccan King Mohammed VI to France (a mere “vacation” according to royal sources) as a panicked visit to Nicolas Sarkozy. The monarchy itself is aware of the potential for an uprising in Morocco; in a recent interview with Spanish newspaper El Pais, Prince Mulay Hicham (the king's cousin) said “Almost every authoritarian system will be affected by this wave of protest, Morocco will probably be no exception… The gap between social classes undermines the legitimacy of political and economic system… If most social agents recognize the monarchy, they are, nevertheless, dissatisfied with the strong concentration of power in the hands of the Executive."
A further potential source of instability for Morocco's ruling class is Western Sahara, a territory where it has ruled colonial-style since the mid-1970s.
tinyurl.com/freewesternsahara.
No comments:
Post a Comment