Middle East and North Africa

On 9 December 2021, the president of Tunisia issued a circular (No. 20) to all ministries and government institutions prohibiting anyone from negotiating with the unions without the formal and prior authorisation of the head of government. The circular was still in force in 2023.

In Oman, some employers adopted delaying tactics to avoid negotiation with workers’ representatives, including by not responding to invitations to hold joint meetings or delaying responses to the demands of workers’ representatives.

In Lebanon, independent trade unions regularly faced a refusal to negotiate from employers. Employers used various anti-union tactics including questioning a trade union’s representativity, creating a negotiating committee with no genuine workers’ representation, or referring a dispute to the courts to delay the negotiation process.

In Israel, the Histadrut declared a labour dispute in April 2022, following unilateral actions of the Minister of Transport, which led to the privatisation of several wharves. The Histadrut denounced the government’s unilateral action in bad faith and in violation of social dialogue, with these privatisation measures following years of understanding between the parties.

In Iraq, labour legislation did not sufficiently protect the right to collective bargaining. In an overall repressive climate for trade unions, including for the General Federation of Iraq Trade Unions, it was increasingly difficult for workers’ representatives to engage in collective bargaining. Employers seldom respected collective agreements.

Employers in the garment sector in Egypt often did not respect the provisions of concluded collective agreements.

In Morocco, certain categories of public employees were still denied the right to freedom of association, such as judges.

In Kuwait, Jullebee Ranara, a 35-year-old maid from the Philippines, was raped, killed, burnt, and buried by the 17-year-old son of her Kuwaiti employers on 21 January 2023. Authorities identified and arrested the perpetrator within 24 hours of finding Ranara’s body, which was buried in the Al-Salmi desert. Autopsy reports revealed Ranara had been four months pregnant at the time of her murder. During interrogations, the perpetrator admitted he had sexually assaulted Jullebee, and murdered her when he found out that she was pregnant.

The killing sent shockwaves through Kuwait and across the Philippines, sparking calls for a deployment ban pending a review of bilateral labour agreements. On 8 February 2023, the Filipino government suspended the accreditation of new recruitment agencies in the Gulf country and stopped first-time workers from seeking employment in Kuwait.

That same week, another abuse case emerged, when another domestic worker from the Philippines was paralysed after jumping from a window to escape her abusive employer.

There were more than 24,000 cases of violation and abuse of Filipino workers in Kuwait in 2022, according to Department of Migrant Workers data – a significant increase from 6,500 cases in 2016. More than 268,000 Filipinos live and work in Kuwait.

In the United Arab Emirates, foreign workers represented 89 per cent of the workforce. Under the kafala system, any attempt at escaping or fleeing an employer in the UAE was punishable by law. Runaway workers were imprisoned, deported, and faced significant financial costs, including paying back their employers for sponsorship fees without receiving salaries earned.

In Jordan, foreign workers did not have the right to establish trade unions. They could only join a trade union constituted in one of the 17 sectors strictly defined by the government. In practice, foreign workers were disproportionately represented in excluded sectors where no collective representation is allowed, including the domestic sector (where non-Jordanians accounted for almost all of the workforce) and the agricultural sector (where non-Jordanians represented 70 per cent of the workforce). Due to these legal restrictions, foreign workers in these sectors were effectively deprived of their right to establish and join trade unions.

In the education sector, almost 1,000 foreign workers were not allowed, by an Act of 2011, to join the Jordanian Teachers’ Association (JTA).

Palestinians’ access to work in Israel and the illegal settlements is tightly controlled through a repressive permit system, security checks and checkpoints. Only Palestinians with valid work permits can be ‘legally’ employed by Israeli businesses. Out of the estimated 133,000 Palestinian workers in Israel and the illegal settlements, roughly 94,000 had a work permit. The overwhelming majority (99 per cent) of permit holders are men, and most work in the construction sector.

Permits are issued for a duration of up to six months but can be arbitrarily annulled at any time by employers or Israel’s security services. Employers often used the threat of annulling permits to discipline workers who join unions, demand rights, or are involved in any form of political activity.

In Lebanon, it was very common for employers to interfere in social elections, including by deleting names from the lists of candidates.

In Israel, workers at the Gulf Port have been denied genuine representation by their employer. The port management cooperated with the National Labor Federation in Eretz-Israel (NLF) to intimidate and pressure port workers into signing up with NLF. Workers were given no choice, as most of them were Chinese citizens, and their management withheld their work permits. The Histadrut filed a lawsuit before the National Labour Court which invalidated the signatures of port workers in light of the inauthenticity of the representation and of the pressure exerted by the management for workers to join the NLF.

On 11 July 2021, the Ministry of Electricity in Iraq issued a directive banning trade union committees and instructing employees in public-owned companies not to engage in such committees under penalty of criminal prosecution. The directive was still in force in 2023.

In Egypt, employers often withheld union dues despite check-off agreements, as was the case at Pasta Regina, a food producer that employed over 1,500 workers in Cairo.

In Lebanon, the authorities severely impeded the registration of trade unions. A number of applications for registration have yet to be granted by the Ministry of Labour, including the Agricultural Workers Union, the Port Drivers Union, the Mechanical Inspection Workers Union, the Domestic Service Workers Union, and the Public Sector Workers Union.

In Jordan, the Jordanian Teachers’ Association (JTA) was shut down by the authorities in July 2020 and most of its leadership was arrested, sparking popular protests across the country with over 1,000 protesters detained by security forces. The union has since been re-opened, but its leadership has been replaced and members face restrictions in organising collective actions.

In Iraq, there is a general prohibition, in place since 1987, against forming and joining trade union organisations in the public sector. The Ministries of Industry and Minerals, of Oil, and of Electricity regularly threatened workers to refer them to the judiciary if they tried to create or join a trade union. They also transferred union members to institutions outside their field of work and outside their area of residence, including the following union leaders of the General Federation of Iraqi Trade Unions working in the companies of the Ministry of Industry and Minerals: Samira Nasser, Sabah Hassan Abdullah Ghaleb Kazem Al-Tamimi, Dhikra Khalil, Faris Mazloum, Abbas Mahmoud Mahdi.

Union activities and meetings were also prohibited within the companies. The collection of union fees was not allowed, and trade unions in the public sector were not allowed to open bank accounts.

Since 2020, all independent unions in Iraq have been 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 Egypt, all independent unions were dissolved in March 2018. Since then, many have faced countless administrative hurdles and in 2023 were still seeking official registration with the authorities. In 2023, the authorities refused to register independent unions established in the following sectors: garment, agriculture, glass industry, telecommunications, street vendors and taxi drivers.

Where a yellow union already existed in the workplace, unions met further difficulties, with employers claiming that under the 2017 law, only one trade union committee can be set up, thus preventing the formation of a new union. In 2023, this was the case for independent unions at the Library of Alexandria, the Post Office, several Teachers Local Units and unions in the judiciary.

Several strike actions in Lebanon were suppressed by the police who arbitrarily detained workers, especially those from overseas.

In Jordan, at least 25 members of the Jordanian Teachers’ Association (JTA) were arrested on 29 March 2022, as authorities tried to prevent a protest in front of the Ministry of Education. The union had planned a sit-in to protest the forced retirement of several teachers and restrictions placed by the government on the organisation and its members since 2020.

These 25 arrests come fresh off the back of a preceding wave of arrests on 24 March, in which 45 activists were detained by security forces before being released.

In Iran, thousands of oil workers went on strike in cities across the country in early October 2022. Workers at the Hengam petrochemical facilities in Bushehr went on strike on 10 October in support of the protests taking place across the country against the government. On 11 October, police violently cracked down on strikers and arrested many workers. Security and riot police maintained a heavy presence in the southern industrial sites. More than 30 workers in the oil production industry were arrested, including Hadi Moulai, Ali Mahmoudi, Mehdi Jahanbakhshi, Noorali Bahadri, Farid Koravand, Kambiz Mohammadi, Shahin Najafi, Ahmed Pour, Farshid Moradi, Ali Shapouri and Omid Kuravand. By the end of October, over 500 contract workers in the oil and gas industries of Asaluyeh and Abadan were arrested, and over 100 were sacked.

In Morocco, in June 2022, workers at the company Business Casablanca 2S, a subsidiary of the multinational Comdata Group which provides services to outsource customer interactions, organised a half-day strike to express their demands about low pay and lack of purchasing power. Most of the 1,400 workers of the company are affiliated with the Union Marocaine du Travail (UMT). As a result of this strike, seven unionised employees were fired. They were also criminally charged for their union activities.

In Israel, workers of Wolt Delivery, an app-based food delivery service, had organised as members of the Histadrut HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed (the Working and Studying Youth Union) and a national committee was formed. Several workers were suspended from the app for leading demonstrations to demand better and safer working conditions and one was banned from the app on spurious accusations of violence. No investigation was carried out and the worker had no means at his disposal to defend himself. The worker’s access to the app was finally restored after the Histadrut HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed interceded with the company.

On 6 April 2022, the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity privatised two power stations to the Kar company in Basra governorate: the Shatt Al-Basra gas power station and the Al-Rumaila gas power station. Kar informed the two stations that it did not require the number of workers at each station and that it had to lay off about a quarter of them.

The employees of these two stations rejected the decision and, in collaboration with the electricity sector unions, organised multiple protests, as well as picket lines in front of the two stations. This led to a clash between the protesters and security forces, injuring some workers.

As a result, the Ministry of Electricity terminated the employment contract of one of the protesters, labelling him an instigator of the strikes.

In Egypt, workers were frequently victims of retaliation and were summarily dismissed for taking part in strike actions, including at steel producer Beshay Company and Pasta Regina, a food producer.

The strike organised at Beshay was also brutally repressed by the police.

In Algeria, the employees of El Watan, a national newspaper, organised a strike in July 2022 to protest the non-payment of wages. In response, the employer called on a group of shareholders and retirees of the company to replace workers on strike. While the collective action was ongoing, the general secretary of the union section and a member of the union were physically assaulted by several shareholders. Prior to the strike, a member of the board of directors of the newspaper called several workers and threatened them with dismissal if they took part in the strike.

In Iran, long-time labour rights defenders Haleh Safarzadeh and Alireza Saghafi were arrested on 11 March 2022 and immediately taken to Kachuei Prison in Karaj to serve one-year sentences dating from 2019. Safarzadeh, a teacher, and Saghafi, a writer and auto mechanic, work with the Center for Workers’ Rights, informing workers of their fundamental rights and defending victims of repression.

The two were first arrested, together with other workers’ rights advocates, on 26 April 2019, in the run-up to planned May Day celebrations across Iran. They were tried and convicted later that year on spurious charges of ‘propaganda against the system’.

Haleh Safarzadeh was finally given conditional release from prison on 10 August after serving five months in prison. However, Alireza Saghafi remained imprisoned, despite repeated requests for medical furlough to treat his serious health problems.

On May Day 2022, workers across Iran held protest marches despite attempts at repression by government forces. In total, over 230 teachers were arrested for taking part in May Day demonstrations.

In Tehran, despite the presence of armed security forces which had surrounded the Islamic parliament, a number of teachers marched to one of the city’s parks, holding banners of protest and posters of imprisoned teachers to mark the day of freedom and equality.

In Bushehr, police forces stormed a gathering of teachers in the morning, beating and arresting at least 12 of them.

On 12 May, teachers in more than 40 cities across Iran gathered to protest against the continued detention of their colleagues. In Yasuj, security forces were deployed in front of the General Directorate of Education to prevent teachers from gathering, and when the teachers tried to gather and protest, more than 50 were arrested and detained.

Throughout 2022 and 2023, workers in government-owned companies in Iraq, including in the mining, electricity, oil and construction sectors, were prevented from demonstrating by the authorities. In the education sector, workers were subjected to police harassment when they held demonstrations.

In Egypt, workers were not allowed to celebrate May Day. In other events, independent trade unions were prevented from holding meetings and owners of meeting halls were pressured to cancel reservations made by trade unions.

In Lebanon, trade unions recorded several instances of beatings, intimidation, and harassment of trade union members to force them to withdraw from their representative organisations or to drop complaints. In other cases, employers resorted to docking pay and arbitrary dismissals.

On 19 February 2023, Esther Lynch, ETUC General Secretary, was forced out of the country for addressing a rally organised by the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT) to protest against President Kais Saied’s failed policies, a wave of anti-union action by the authorities, and the continued detention of UGTT official Anis Kaabi, who was arrested on 31 January following a strike.

President Saied ordered the expulsion of Lynch over a speech his office called “blatant interference” in the country’s internal affairs.

Saied has, since his 2019 election, eroded and removed key institutions of democracy and assumed complete power for himself. His policies have done enormous damage to Tunisia’s economy, society and the daily life of working people.

On 3 March 2023, the government banned the entry of trade unionists from at least six countries who were due in Tunisia to show solidarity with the ITUC-affiliated UGTT at a weekend rally.

On 31 January 2023, the general secretary of the employees’ union of the Tunisian highway company Tunisie Autoroutes, Anis Kaabi, was arrested in the context of a strike planned by the union on 30 and 31 January. Workers were demanding the renewal of the operating contract for the Tunis-Msaken highway, due to end in 2025, as well as salary increases that had been decided under an agreement concluded between the UGTT and the government in September 2022, and the delivery of uniforms that had been promised five years earlier.

Kaabi’s home was searched by security forces and his family was not initially informed of his whereabouts. He was finally granted a telephone call around 11pm and was then able to contact his family and ask them to send a lawyer to the police district of El Gorjani.

This arrest was a direct consequence of a complaint filed by Tunisie Autoroutes against Kaabi for “financial losses caused by the strike”. The losses related of the opening of free lanes during the strike period. However, it appears that it was a management decision to open the corridors. Kaabi’s arrest followed menacing statements by the President of the Republic, who declared that trade unionists who threaten to close the highways “must be held to account”.

In Lebanon, workers’ protests were often suppressed by police forces using disproportionate violence and arbitrary arrests.

In Jordan, Alaa Abu Tarboush, a member of the Jordanian Teachers’ Association (JTA), was arrested as he was dropping his children off at school. According to Abu Tarboush’s father, four security officials stopped his car and arrested him, taking him to an unknown location.

In February 2023, several workers at the Isfahan Steel Company in Iran were arrested amid rallies taking place near the industrial complex about workplace conditions. Riot police broke up a rally during the strike by hundreds of workers at the country’s third-largest steel producer. The workers had been on strike since 25 February, demanding better conditions and higher salaries. The Steelworkers Union said workers had no information about the status of their arrested colleagues.

In August of 2022, three teacher union activists were arrested at the May Day protests and illegally detained. Eskandar Lotfi, Shaban Mohammadi and Masoud Nikkhah were all members of the board of directors of the Teachers’ Trade Association of Mariwan, in the Province of Kurdistan, Iran. Lofti is also the spokesperson for the Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations (CCITTA). Disproportionate bails for their release were imposed on the three and they still face trial.

While in detention, Lofti, together with other detained teachers, went on hunger strike to protest the illegal and repressive actions of the security forces. He was urged by his colleagues to end his hunger strike after 10 days due to his severely deteriorating health conditions. The families of many imprisoned labour activists also issued a joint open letter to denounce their continued illegal imprisonment and the unacceptable detention conditions.

Several of the teachers were arrested around May Day and remained in detention, sometimes in solitary confinement, such as Rasoul Bodaghi, Jafar Ebrahimi and Mohammad Habibi.

The teacher rights’ activists were arrested in the wave of repression that targeted educators all over the country around May Day 2022. The authorities were desperate to stop the peaceful trade union demonstrations over teachers’ poor wages, the inadequate education budget and the imprisonment of teacher trade unionists. The authorities have since arrested, summoned, investigated and/or interrogated more than 200 teachers on baseless and false national security charges, violating their rights to freedom of association, to organise, and to freedom of speech.

On 8 May 2022, teacher Cécile Kohler and retired teacher Jacques Paris, both members of the FO Federation of National Education and Vocational Training (FNEC FP FO) in France, were arrested on allegations of espionage and fomenting insecurity in Iran. They were arrested at the airport of Tehran as they were about to leave the country, after a private trip for which they had obtained a short-stay visa.

It was not until 11 May that Iranian television, citing the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence, announced the arrest of Jacques Paris and Cécile Kohler on the pretext of their having “entered the country with the aim of trigger [sic] chaos and destabilize [sic] society”.

On 6 July, the two were formally “accused of association and collusion with the aim of undermining the security of the country”.

For seven months, and despite the efforts of their families and the French government, Kohler’s and Paris’ whereabouts remained unknown. In November 2022, they were finally allowed a brief consular visit and a call to their respective families. These brief contacts confirmed that both Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris were maintained in poor detention conditions at the Evin prison, and that their mental and physical health had severely deteriorated. During the first three months of their illegal detention, they were kept in isolation. Since November, neither the French embassy nor their families have received any news.

Faleh Hammoudi was brought before the courts for speaking up against the Algerian government’s violations of migrants’ rights. In the past years, there had been an escalation of repression against human rights defenders in Algeria. On 20 February 2020, the Tlemcen Court of Misdemeanours, in Northern Algeria, convicted Faleh Hammoudi to three years’ imprisonment and a fine of 100,000 Algerian dinar (US$ 737).

Faleh Hammoudi is the head of the Tlemcen office of the Algerian League for the Defence of Human Rights (LADDH) and the national secretary of the Autonomous National Union of Public Administration Staff (SNAPAP), in charge of the human rights and migration department.