Unions appeal against denial of their rights by Abbas faction

The Gaza branch of the Union of Public Employees announced a general strike last Monday, January 12th, in four government ministries: public works, justice, women’s affairs and labour. The statement issued by the union notes that today is the first step and that on Tuesday the health ministry will also join the strike. The Union of Health Care Workers announced that should the health ministry indeed go on strike, work in Gaza hospitals will stop.

Why is the Palestinian Authority arresting trade union leaders?

By Ahmed Nimer, The Electronic Intifada
January 17, 2015

A confrontation between the Palestinian Authority and organized labour will come to a head on Monday when the high court in Ramallah hears an appeal to a decision by PA leader Mahmoud Abbas to declare a major union illegal.

The PA’s crackdown on the Union of Public Employees escalated last November amid a series of strikes by public sector workers over wages and conditions.

On 6 November, the PA’s police summoned for interrogation the head of the Union of Public Employees and his deputy in Ramallah.

Upon arrival, both Bassam Zakarneh and his deputy, Muin Ansawi, were detained and transferred to the Palestinian public prosecutor for further interrogation. Their detention was extended for 48 more hours.

Hours after the detentions, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas declared the union illegal.

Abbas’ presidential office declared that the decision was based on a 2012 legal memo drafted by a presidential committee he had commissioned to investigate the legality of the union and which had found it null and void.

Union leader Bassam Zakarneh talking to President Abbas in 2011. He was arrested last November by PNA forces and the union – the largest in Palestine – declared illegal.

The well-know supporter of union rights, Daily Mail, said: ‘President Mahmoud Abbas has outlawed the West Bank’s largest labour union and arrested its top two officials in what critics say is a sign of increasing heavy-handedness by the Palestinian leader.

An announcement by Abbas’ office followed a series of strikes by the union demanding more benefits. It said the strikes were illegal and “harmed the public interest.”

Moayad Amer, an official of the 40,000-member union, said Sunday that officials were trying to get their leaders released. “It is our right to have a union,” he said.

The arrests have been seen as a sign of a growing intolerance for dissent by Abbas.
Jihad Harb, an analyst, said Abbas has ruled “in an autocratic way” since losing control of the Gaza Strip to the rival Hamas militant group in 2007. MailOnline, November 9th, 2014

Hours before the arrests, a coalition of public sector unions issued a statement condemning the PA’s plan to cut employees’ wages for days they go on strike. The statement claimed that this was a violation of workers’ right to organize and cited a number of simmering grievances against the PA.

Legitimate leadership?

Ironically, the statement ended with the unions declaring their support for the “legitimate” leadership of Abbas, even though his elected mandate expired in 2009.

A few days after the arrests, the PA continued its crackdown with another arrest warrant. The head of the health workers’ union, Dr. Osama al-Najjar, subsequently handed himself over to the police. Al-Najjar had called the unions to an emergency meeting to discuss the PA’s crackdown.

Following his arrest, the health workers’ union declared a partial strike for the following week. This call was rescinded after al-Najjar was released only hours later.

But the PA crackdown against the unions escalated further when the matter was taken up by the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC).

On the evening of 12 November, the PLC, in a statement made by its secretary general, Ibrahim Khraisheh, held Rami Hamdallah, the Palestinian Authority’s latest unelected prime minister, responsible for all the measures taken against the unions, deeming them illegal.

The statement also declared an open-ended strike and sit-in by PLC employees in solidarity with the arrested trade unionists. It called on all those who wanted to stand with the strike to join them in the solidarity tent in the yard outside the PLC building in Ramallah.

According to former PLC deputy speaker Hassan Khraisheh, Ibrahim Khraisheh received a phone call from Abbas ordering him to hand himself over to the Palestinian security forces just hours after the statement was made.

Ignoring orders

Union of Public Employees president Bassam Zakarneh is a member of Fatah’s Revolutionary Council, the executive body of the political faction that is headed by Abbas.

For most of its history, the union has carefully avoided doing anything that would upset Abbas and other senior players in the PA. After calling a number of strikes since 2013, however, the relationship between the PA and the union has soured.

Palestinians march past the Muqata, PNA headquarters in Ramallah, September 11, 2012, protesting against high prices and the Paris Protocol (governing Israel/Palestine trade). Since then, trade union-initiated protests at the PNA have been common. Photo by Anne Paq / Active Stills.

The latest in a series of strikes was called on 6 November, the day of the arrests, to protest a decision by the PA to withhold wages for the time workers were off the job.

A strike a week earlier was over delays by the PA in implementing various promises, including that public servants’ pay would be increased in line with inflation.

On Wednesday, Zakarneh took part in a protest in solidarity with nine finance ministry workers who were transferred to regional offices in retaliation for their union organizing. Their case is due to be heard by the high court in February.

Zakarneh and other trade unionists have disseminated a call for public workers to stay off the job when the union’s case is heard on Monday and to rally in front of the court in Ramallah.

Serving the people

Labour unions have served the Palestinian people before and since the first intifada began in 1987. On occasion, they have caused significant problems for Israel’s colonial project.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian workers went on strike at the beginning of the first intifada, halting production in Israeli factories and businesses for days before the Israeli authorities cracked down on the organizers, splitting the unions and creating divisions.

The unions played a major role in organizing Palestinian communities across the occupied West Bank and Gaza during the intifada’s early days.

This laid the foundation for the different local committees that would later work in serving communities in various sectors, such as health, education, safety and food production.

Since the Oslo accords and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1993, however, the unions have tended to be more eager to serve the elite than to defend workers.

Losing most of their influence on the people, unions became organizations in which Fatah and Hamas, the two dominant political parties, fought for control.

According to some, the main reason the Union of Public Employees was established in the first place was to make it harder for Hamas to govern after its legislative elections victory in 2006.

Former deputy speaker of the PLC Hassan Khraisheh said recently: “The union was established with support from PA leaders to bicker with the Hamas led-government. It looks like they have made a decision to get rid of it, after it was used for a while. This should not happen.”

Good opportunity

Abbas’ attempts to control trade union activists deprives the Palestinian people of yet another opportunity to rise above the rivalries between political parties.

Palestinian trade unions in May Day parade, 2014. Photo from Green Brigade website

Labour unions have a good opportunity to regain their solid connections with the Palestinian public by becoming more democratic and holding elections once every two years (not based on party affiliation).

The unions also need to break any unnecessary relations with PA figures, starting with Abbas.

The unions gain their legitimacy from the workers and the people — by serving workers’ interests, not through their relations to a certain political party or personality.

For a number of months, Gaza workers have been denied pay because of the ongoing conflict between Hamas and Fatah. Declaring a strike in solidarity with them would be an important step towards restoring the independence of Palestinian labor unions.

Ahmed Nimer is a freelance photographer currently living and working in Ramallah.

Unpaid Gaza civil servants announce ministry strikes

GAZA CITY — The trade union representing Gaza civil servants employed by the former Hamas-run government on Saturday announced a series of one- and two-day strikes by civil servants to protest the fact that they have not been paid for the last eight months.

Union spokesman Muhammad Siyam said in a statement that the protests will include a strike on Sunday and Monday in the ministries of public works, labor, justice, and women’s affairs.

The move comes amid growing unrest over the uncertain future facing the 50,000 employees of the former Hamas government, who have not been paid in eight months since the unity government was launched and fear they will be dismissed.

Siyam added that employees in all other ministries would go on strike Tuesday, including the ministry of education.

The ministry of health will also join the strike, except emergency rooms, neonatal units, dialysis, intensive care units, and blood banks.

All four ministries are led by ministers from the Gaza Strip selected through the national consensus government, and the move will put pressure on them to find a solution to the civil servants crisis.

At the heart of the problem is that after Hamas in Gaza in 2007, the Palestinian Authority continued paying its own civil servants in the Strip despite the fact that they were not carrying out any work.

Since the signing of an April unity deal between Fatah and Hamas however, Hamas been demanding the new government pay the salaries of the civil servants it recruited after its takeover of Gaza in 2007.

They replaced 70,000 workers who had been employed under the PA government that existed in Gaza prior.

The Hamas government employees continue carrying out work in the ministries, however, without any regular salaries.

The extremely severe economic situation in the Gaza Strip due to the eight-year-old Israeli siege and repeated bombardments compounds the problem, as the former civil servants know that if they are fired there is little hope they will find any other work.

DWRC denounces violations of freedom of association and the right to organize of public sector employees by the Palestinian Authority, and calls for international solidarity

Statement by the Democracy and Workers’ Rights Centre (DWRC), Palestine
Posted by Labor4Palestine
November 09, 2014

The Democracy and Workers’ Rights Center in Palestine condemns the detention of representatives of the Union of Public Employees, including its president and vice-president, Bassam Zakarneh, and Moein Ansawi, and the closure of the Union of Public Employees office in Ramallah following a general strike called for by the union last Thursday. We call for the immediate release of all detained trade union representatives and activists, and the reopening of the office of the Union of Public Employees.

On Thursday 6/11/2014, the Palestinian police arrested the president of the Union of Public Employees, Bassam Zakarneh, and the Union’s vice-president, Moein Ansawi, in Ramallah. On 7/11/2014, the Palestinian president’s office issued a statement declaring that the Union of Public Employee is not a “legal entity”, and the office of the Union of Public Employees in Al-Irsal Street in Ramallah was sealed. An additional number of representatives of the Union of Public Employees have been detained over the last two days.

The Democracy and Workers’ Rights Center in Palestine is extremely concerned by these developments, which amount to serious violations of freedom of association and the right to organize of Palestinian public sector employees. They intervene after the Union of Public Employees has been escalating its protest actions and activities to defend the rights of public employees, and obtain unpaid allowances and other benefits. The Union of Public Employees has been representing governmental employees in the West Bank since 2006, and union representatives have been elected by the employees of ministries and official institutions on a regular basis. Furthermore, it has conducted regular dialogue with the Palestinian Authority on the subject of public employees’ rights, and has negotiated several agreements with various Palestinian governments since its establishment.

Freedom of association and the right to organize is a fundamental human right and liberty that must be upheld and protected under all circumstances. Therefore, we call on all trade unions, labor rights and human rights organizations worldwide, to intercede with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian officials for the immediate release of detained representatives of the Union of Public Employees, including its president and vice-president Bassam Zakarneh and Moein Ansawi, for the reopening of the office of the Union of Public Employees, and for guaranteeing freedom of association and the right to organize for all public sector employees of the Palestinian National Authority.

Notes and links

This is the 2012 decision which the unions are appealing against.

Largest Palestinian workers’ union declared illegal

Palestine Chronicle, May 31, 2012

EXCERPT

A committee set up by President Mahmoud Abbas has found the union of public sector employees has no legal standing, six years after it first started representing government workers.

The committee report, of which Ma’an obtained a copy, concludes: “There is no legal body or organized legal framework for the so-called ‘public sector workers union’.”

The report says the committee hopes to “respond to irresponsibility in the civil and public services which is caused by the unilateral decisions taken by the union council officials.”

It also calls for measures to correct “the harm inflicted on the Fatah leadership through media statements and opposition to PA policies, and creation of a state of chaos and confusion in Palestinian public opinion, and calling into question the abilities of the PA in world opinion.”