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Tunisia: March 18 Declaration of the UGTT :

"Put an End to the Policies of Indebtedness,Against Foreign Interference in Libya"

By MOHAMED BEN LARBI

TUNIS -- The mass mobilizations of the people across Tunisia, mainly thegigantic demonstrations in Tunis (over 500,000) and Sfax, forced the M'bazaa-Cad-Essebsi government to announce that elections for the ConstituentAssembly will be held on July 24, 2011.

For the Great Powers, everything must be done to maintain a regime thatensures the implementation of the plans of the IMF and the "free trade"

Agreement of Association with the European Union.

France, which is spearheading the policy aimed at strangling the Tunisianeconomy, supports "stepping up the discussions on establishing a privilegedpartnership with the Tunisian government to create a Free Trade Zone."

Across the country -- in the cities, villages, and workplaces -- Committees for theDefense of the Revolution are being created, or strengthened where theyalready exist. Workers, youth, and all the oppressed people understand that it is

in the framework of these Committees, which were created in the heat of theongoing revolution, that the future of the Constituent Assembly will be playedout.

At the same time, the strikes have been multiplying in the companies involvedwith subcontracting and outsourcing. Here an important gain has beenregistered as a result of this strike movement: Workers in the public sector wonthe right not to have their jobs outsourced to private, non-union companies. Thisis a huge victory as these private subcontracting companies pay very low wagesand provide only precarious jobs. Henceforth, all workers in these companies

will become public employees with full-time jobs, rights and civil service status.

On the night of March 17, 2011, the Security Council of the United Nationsadopted a resolution giving the green light for NATO forces to intervene militarilyin Libya.

It was in this context that the Administrative Commission of the General Union ofTunisian Labor (UGTT) took place on March 18 in Gammarth, a suburb south of

8/7/2019 Tunisia: March 18 Declaration of the UGTT

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Tunis.

With 100,000 new union members since the flight of dictator Ben Ali on January14, the UGTT represents today the workers, youth and all the oppressed peopleof Tunisia. It is the only force capable of opposing -- and putting a halt to -- the

policy decisions of the Tunisian government as well as the internationaleconomic and political pressures -- and even the trade union pressures via thethe International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) -- that are aimed atmaintaining the ties of Tunisia's subordination to the international institutions offinance capital.

The declaration adopted by the UGTT's Administrative Commission indicatesthat the UGTT is standing up as an obstacle to the implementation of thesepolicies:

Indeed, the Administrative Commission declaration includes the following points:

"5 - The UGTT registers the gains won in relation to the elimination ofsubcontracting in the public sector, and calls on workers in the concernedsubcontracted companies to act, likewise, in the private sector. ...

"9 - The UGTT calls on the government to put an end to the policies ofindebtedness and to take action on all prior debts that were shady and corrupt.

"10 - The UGTT also expresses its support to the Arab people in Libya, Yemenand Bahrain in the struggle for justice and freedom. The UGTT denounces therecourse to repression and weapons against unarmed demonstrators. and itreiterates its rejection of any foreign interference in these countries.

"In conclusion, the UGTT welcomes the progress made by the components ofthe Palestinian resistance in the sense of a political union that will have animpact on the struggle against Israeli occupation. "

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(The original version of this article, in French, was published in Issue No. 141 ofInformations Ouvrires [Labor News], the weekly newspaper of theIndependent Workers Party of France.)