{"id":2323,"date":"2025-08-20T16:35:28","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T16:35:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/08\/20\/confrontation-between-tunisias-general-union-president-saied-escalates\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T16:35:28","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T16:35:28","slug":"confrontation-between-tunisias-general-union-president-saied-escalates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/08\/20\/confrontation-between-tunisias-general-union-president-saied-escalates\/","title":{"rendered":"Confrontation between Tunisia\u2019s General Union, President Saied escalates"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Tunisia\u2019s General Labour Union (UGTT) is poised to take on President Kais Saied in a protest scheduled for August 21.<\/p>\n

The union called for a protest against what it says are government attempts to undermine workers\u2019 rights, and the use of intimidation to curb strikes, referring to a three-day UGTT transport strike at the end of July.<\/p>\n

Since he seized power on July 25, 2021, Saied has radically undermined the role of parliament and political parties while granting himself vastly increased powers through a constitution revised according to his edicts.<\/p>\n

Yet the UGTT\u2019s ability to mobilise its hundreds of thousands of members stands as one of the few remaining counters to Saied, analysts say.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe UGTT has always been more than just a trade union,\u201d Hamza Meddeb of the Carnegie Institute, who has written extensively on the organisation, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was established even before Tunisian independence, and played a significant role in achieving that,\u201d he said of Tunisia\u2019s liberation from France in 1956.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince then, it\u2019s played both an economic role \u2026 as well as a political role, such as in 2015, when it was the principal force behind establishing the National Dialogue,\u201d Meddeb continued, referring to a political crisis when the UGTT and three other civil society organisations helped prevent the collapse of Tunisia\u2019s post-revolutionary democracy.<\/p>\n

\"Kais
Tunisia\u2019s President Kais Saied\u00a0 [File: Johanna Geron\/Pool via Reuters]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Inevitable confrontation<\/h2>\n

Matters reached a head between UGTT and Saied on August 7 when hundreds of Saied\u2019s supporters rallied outside UGTT headquarters, accusing it of \u201ccorruption\u201d and \u201csquandering people\u2019s money\u201d after a three-day transport strike in late July paralysed much of the country.<\/p>\n

The following night, Saied defended the anti-union protesters, repeating their calls for union \u201caccountability\u201d and stressing that, contrary to claims from both the UGTT and rights groups, his supporters had not intended violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are files that must be opened because the people are demanding accountability \u2026 so that their money can be returned to them,\u201d Saied said in a video posted on the presidency\u2019s official Facebook page.<\/p>\n

Further confrontations between the president and the union were inevitable, but many analysts point to what they say is a union weakened by internal schisms and the threat to its decades-long monopoly on union power in Tunisia.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the past two years, the UGTT has been silent, certainly on the political side of things,\u201d a political analyst who remained in Tunisia told Al Jazeera, on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n

\u201cSaied even revised the labour code without consulting them,\u201d they said of the May decision to change laws that affected many of UGTT\u2019s members.<\/p>\n

\u201cPreviously, making a decision on that scale without the UGTT would have been inconceivable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Supporters
UGTT supporters take to the streets in 2023. Analysts say the union\u2019s ability to draw similar numbers to the streets has declined in the years since [Jihed Abidellaoui\/Reuters]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A weakened union<\/h2>\n

Much of the UGTT\u2019s relatively low profile lies in an internal rupture, prompted by its decision in 2021 to extend its board\u2019s mandate from two to three terms, which is said to have splintered the union\u2019s membership and undermined it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are many in the UGTT who see the 2021 decision as a coup d\u2019etat of the union\u2019s own, which has really weakened the board\u2019s decision to do anything,\u201d Meddeb said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou also can\u2019t avoid the fact that the financial situation across the country is getting much, much worse, which means that the core membership of the union \u2013 the state-dependent middle class \u2013 are also suffering, and are blaming a board they already have little faith in for that, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, when Saied calls it a \u2018corrupt union\u2019 \u2026 that makes sense to much of its membership,\u201d Meddeb said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s also easy, [given its long history and close relationships with all of Tunisia\u2019s past governments] for Saied to paint it as part of the country\u2019s elite that has been holding its people back,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n

A rival union emerges<\/h2>\n

Moves to undermine the UGTT\u2019s base are already under way.<\/p>\n

On Monday, the government announced it would halt the longstanding practice of allowing union officials to receive their government salaries while on union business, with more such moves expected.<\/p>\n

\"Secretary-General
UGTT secretary-general, Noureddine Taboubi, called for a protest in response to what the union says are government attacks upon it [File: Fethi Belaid\/AFP]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Saied is also said to be encouraging the rival Union of Tunisian Workers (UTT), which analysts such as author Hatem Nafti say could try to take advantage of any weakening of the bond between the UGTT and its membership, to boost its standing.<\/p>\n

How successful that would be in light of the UTT leadership\u2019s previous convictions on corruption charges, remained to be seen, he added.<\/p>\n

That the UTT is ready to step into any breach left by the UGTT was clear last week, when it issued a statement accusing its rivals of what it said was the \u201cdefamation\u201d of the president.<\/p>\n

Nafti said that the government might also seek to halt the practice of deducting UGTT membership fees from state employees\u2019 salaries at source before transferring the funds to the union, which would give UTT more hope of winning members away from UGTT.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat Kais Saied would move against the UGTT was written from day one,\u201d Nafti told Al Jazeera from Paris, where he now lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cPopulism doesn\u2019t allow any mediator between the leader and the people, so firstly, he got rid of rival political parties, then civil society and the media.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven the television networks that support him don\u2019t show political programmes any more,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe UGTT was the logical next step.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tunisia\u2019s General Labour Union (UGTT) is poised to take on President Kais Saied in a protest scheduled for August 21. The union called for a protest against what it says are government attempts to undermine workers\u2019 rights, and the use of intimidation to curb strikes, referring to a three-day UGTT transport strike at the end … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}