Middle East and North Africa

On 29 July 2020, members of the Jordanian Teachers’ Association (JTA), which was arbitrarily dissolved later in the year, held a peaceful rally to protest against the relentless attacks of the government. Five hundred teachers were arrested and later released. However, the attorney general brought charges against JTA and its board members. All of them were held in pretrial detention for 30 days.

On 31 December 2020, the Magistrate Court found JTA board members guilty of the following offences: “misdemeanour of inciting hate or riot in educational institutions by use of any means available”; “misdemeanour of inciting illegal gathering”; and “misdemeanour of influencing the freedom of elections”. All were sentenced to the maximum penalty of one-year’s imprisonment.

In January 2021, a large protest of teachers in the vicinity of the Parliament was dispersed by the Jordanian security forces. The teachers then formed separate gatherings and started chanting union slogans, but soon after the police surrounded them and ordered them to leave. The police also detained more than 230 teachers for several hours before releasing them.

In Iran, seven workers were prosecuted and condemned for their participation in a peaceful protest to demand jobs and better living conditions at the Agh-Darreh gold mine in Takab, north-west of the country. In Iran, strikes are often brutally repressed and lead to the prosecution of workers. In Takab, the court ordered the payment of a five million toman fine (around US$270) or serving a 21-month prison term. Unable to pay such a high fine, Daryoush Nikzad, one of the workers, was arrested on 10 June 2020 to serve the sentence. All the convicted men suffered from financial difficulties in the impoverished region of Takab. Locals tried to raise money to pay the fines and prevent the other prosecuted workers from going to prison.

On 30 September 2020, twenty-six workers from the National Steel industries in Egypt were ordered to appear before the State Security Court. The company accused workers of disrupting production and violating freedom of work during a strike organised in May 2019 to protest the non-payment of outstanding wages. Orascom group, which owns the National Steel Industries, filed a complaint against them on the basis of Law No. 34 of 2011, which mandates a prison sentence and a fine of up to 50,000 Egyptian pounds (US$3,184) for participating in strikes.

On 6 August 2020, workers at Ceramica Granito in Egypt began a sit-in to protest the management’s disregard for union demands, including increased wages and higher meal allowance. On 11 August, the general manager of the company met with union leaders and expressed agreement to their demands, promising implementation by the beginning of January 2021. Immediately after this meeting and the union’s announcement of the end of the sit-in, the company dismissed several key union leaders and protesting workers.

Amanor, a Moroccan subsidiary of the French multinational Veolia, has a longstanding history of anti-union policy and of flouting labour laws. In early 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic was spreading, Amanor refused to register its 500 employees with the national social security office, depriving them of government financial aid. The Union Marocaine du Travail (UMT) attempted to intervene in favour of the workers, but the employer stubbornly refused to open dialogue. Strikes began in December 2019. In retaliation, the general secretary of the company-level union was fired without cause in early 2020, sparking an indefinite strike in all units. Veolia has engaged in mass dismissals to quell the strikes and has refused to reinstate the dismissed workers.

In November 2020, the National Union of Tunisian Journalists (SNJT) organised various protests in newsrooms across the country, calling on journalists from public and private media to wear red armbands. On 26 November, Tunisian journalists demonstrated massively to denounce the undue delays in gazetting the collective agreement for journalists, officially signed on 9 January 2019.

This agreement was the result of long years of negotiations between the SNJT and the employers of the sector and it included essential advances for the profession: strengthened journalists' rights, a guaranteed minimum salary (1,400 dinars/US$508) and formalised bonuses, regulated weekly working hours (40 hours per week), regulated paid holidays (between 30 and 40 days) and generalised social security coverage for all journalists. Until the government officially publishes the collective agreement, journalists are deprived of their collective rights.

In 2021, employers in Oman regularly used delaying tactics to circumvent collective bargaining, including by postponing meetings, requesting additional time to study workers' demands or even sending to a meeting a representative who does not have negotiation and decision powers on the employer’s behalf.

In December 2020, a hundred mineworkers spent ten days 700 metres underground in the Jebel Aouam mine near M’rirt in Khénifra province in Morocco, while another 200 workers protested above ground. The strike began after the management of the Compagnie Minière de Touissit failed to implement a collective agreement signed with the Union Marocaine du Travail (UMT) in 2019. This agreement aimed at guaranteeing improved living conditions, better working conditions in the mine, and the provision of occupational health and safety measures.

Certain categories of public employees are still denied the right to freedom of association, such as judges in Morocco.

On 4 September 2020, Lebanon’s Labour Ministry adopted the new standard unified contract for migrant domestic workers, estimated at 250,000 in the country. Under the provisions, domestic workers were allowed to terminate their contract without the consent of their employer and were provided key labour guarantees already afforded to other workers, such as a 48-hour work week, a weekly rest day, overtime pay, sick pay, annual leave, and the national minimum wage, with some permissible deductions for housing and food.

However, on 30 October 2020, Lebanon’s State Shura Council, the country’s top administrative court, delivered a sharp blow to migrant domestic workers’ rights by suspending the implementation of a new standard unified contract. The Syndicate of the Owners of Recruitment Agencies submitted a complaint to the Shura Council on 21 September requesting that the council block and annul the labour minister’s decision and cap the permissible deductions an employer can make from a domestic worker’s salary – equivalent to the national minimum wage – at 30 per cent. The Shura Council ruled in favour of the recruitment agencies on the grounds that these decisions comprised “severe damage” to the agencies’ interests.

Since 2017, Qatar has engaged in a set of important reforms to abolish the kafala (sponsorship) system and extend labour protections to migrant workers in the country. In January 2020, Qatar adopted two ministerial decrees allowing employees to change employers at any time during their contract (by removing the No Objection Certificate) and to leave the country either temporarily or permanently without having to obtain the permission of their employers (by abolishing the exit visa requirement).

On 20 March 2021, Qatar’s non-discriminatory minimum wage came into force, applying to all workers, of all nationalities, in all sectors, including domestic workers. In addition to the minimum monthly basic wage of 1,000 Qatari riyals (US$275), the legislation stipulates that employers must pay allowances of at least 300 Qatari riyals and 500 Qatari riyals for food and housing, respectively, if they do not provide workers with these directly. More than 400,000 workers, that is, 20% of the private sector, will benefit directly through wage increases from the new law.

In 2020, 56 Tunisian workers employed by Gartex were dismissed, including elected leaders of the works union and members of the advisory committee, for attempting to raise workplace safety issues with the management. This was not the first time that Gartex retaliated against its workers. In 2018, the union's general secretary and his deputy were sacked after organising a meeting with workers to discuss workplace issues.

In Iran, Tehran teacher union leader Esmail Abdi was released from Evin prison in Tehran on 17 March 2020. Imprisoned since 20 January 2018, Abdi was initially arrested in connection with his union activities for teachers’ rights. Despite his release in March, Abdi was again required to report to prison on 21 April and was kept in detention with no official indictment and no access to his lawyer. This new arrest came upon a new wave of state repression against prominent labour activists in Iran, just before May Day.

In Iran, Tehran teacher and union leader Esmail Abdi was released from Evin prison on 17 March 2020. In prison since 20 January 2018, Abdi was initially arrested in connection with his union activities for teachers’ rights.

Despite his release in March, Abdi was again required to report to prison on 21 April and was kept in detention. This new arrest of Abdi came amid a new wave of state repression and arbitrary arrests of labour activists ahead of May Day.

In Egypt, protesting workers at a branch of the state-owned Delta Company for Fertilisers and Chemical Industries have been subject to a severe crackdown from the authorities. In late December 2020, thirteen striking workers were arrested from their homes by security forces. Five of those arrested, including elected member Mahmoud Sabry, were released later in the week. On 3 January 2021, the eight remaining workers were brought before the State Security Prosecution in Cairo and issued with fifteen-day remand detention orders. The charges the workers face remain unknown.

On 16 July 2020, Muhammad Karim Jabbari, a member of the Kurdistan Teachers’ union (KTU) and a teacher from Kirkuk, Iraq, was arrested by the local police for calling on the Kirkuk governorate to investigate allegations of corruption in the local health department and non-provision of health care.

On 29 July 2020, the Jordanian police brutally repressed a peaceful rally organised by the Jordanian Teachers’ Association (JTA). Five hundred teachers were arrested and later released. The attorney general later brought charges against JTA board members. All of them were held in pretrial detention for 30 days. On 31 December 2020, the Magistrate Court sentenced the JTA board members to the maximum penalty, one-year imprisonment, for “misdemeanour of inciting hate or riot in educational institutions by use of any means available”; “misdemeanour of inciting illegal gathering”; and “misdemeanour of influencing the freedom of elections”. Following international mobilisation, they were finally released on bail while the JTA board appealed the judicial decision.

In May 2020, the Arak criminal court in Iran sentenced forty-two workers from Azarab Industries, a manufacturing company that constructs components for power plants and refineries, to one year in prison, seventy-four lashes, and one month of forced labour for their participation in a protest to demand the payment of outstanding wages. The court ruled that the workers who took part in the demonstration were guilty of disrupting public order and insulting public officials.

In Egypt, all independent unions were dissolved in March 2018. Since then, they have faced countless administrative hurdles, and many of them are still seeking official registration with the authorities.

On 13 December 2020, the president of the Trade Union of workers in Gharbia directorate’s real estate taxes – whose status has been pending since April 2018 – presented a file requesting the license for establishment. Documents were received informally by the Manpower Directorate, and no official acknowledgment of receipt was given. On 31 December 2020, members of the trade union committee were stunned to be addressed a letter from the Directorate stating that it was forbidden to establish another union committee in the same enterprise and claiming that there was already one holding the same name. Moreover, the Directorate informed the independent union that the membership of workers would be automatically transferred to the already existing committee.

Since 2020, all independent unions in Iraq are unable to operate. On 12 October 2020, the Iraqi Ministry of Labour published letter No. 11367 imposing a trade union monopoly in Iraq and instructing government administrative bodies not to deal with any union other than the officially recognised General Federation of Iraqi Workers.

In 2020 and 2021, the Jordanian Teachers’ Association (JTA) has been the target of multiple attacks by the authorities, including the arbitrary dissolution of the organisation on 31 December 2020 and the prosecution of its board members.

Independent unions have faced hurdles to register in Behera (trade union of workers in Behera directorate real estate taxes), in Cairo (union committee of workers of the Egyptian Company of Communications), in Damietta (union committee of fishermen) and in Qalioubia (union committee of drivers).

On 25 July 2020, security forces in Jordan arrested the board members of the Jordanian Teachers’ Association (JTA), raided the union’s offices and shut it down for a period of two years. The prosecutor charged JTA president Nasser Nawasreh with incitement over a speech the union leader delivered on 22 July and which was critical of the government. Riot police were deployed to stop peaceful demonstrations initiated by JTA members denouncing the crackdown on trade union rights.

On 16 August 2020, the Magistrate’s Criminal Court in Amman imposed a blackout on news coverage related to cases brought against the JTA. The ban on press coverage applied to news, publications, and comments on trial proceedings. These actions by the authorities have provoked peaceful demonstrations in several cities in Jordan. However, other JTA members and supporters were arrested during those demonstrations.

While JTA board members were released on bail on 23 August 2020, due to a legal provision of limiting detention to 30 days, on 26 October, a JTA public press conference was banned by the governor of Amman.

Prior to May Day 2020, the intelligence services of the Revolutionary Guards Corps of Iran harassed and made phone calls to labour activists to threaten them with arrest if they planned or attended May Day events. The government also preventively arrested several trade unionists and sent them to prison, including teacher and union leader Esmail Abdi.