Focus: “Now it is a question of dignity”: A dark year for Algerian unions

Abstract

8 | International Union Rights | 24/3 FOCUS | FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION “Now it is a question of dignity”: A dark year for Algerian unions It was just before midnight when union leader, Raouf Mellal, heard banging on the door of his hotel room in the Algerian city of Tizi-Ouzo. It was the police. They demanded that he get dressed and come down to the local police station immediately. They had no arrest warrant and no legal right to seize him but it would have been pointless to resist. Mellal is President of the independent national union of electricity and gas workers, (Syndicat National des Travailleurs de l’Électricité et du Gaz, SNATEGS). He was not the only one to be seized on the night of 20 March 2017. Nine other colleagues, including five members of the union’s leadership committee staying at the hotel, were also taken into custody. Down at the police station they were grilled about their union activities. Mellal was repeatedly told he was not a legitimate union leader, even though he had been elected in July 2016. They weren’t released until 2pm later that afternoon. Mellal and the SNATEGS leadership had travelled to Tizi-Ouzo on the eve of a planned march in the city, part of the actions for a three day national strike against the state owned energy provider Sonelgaz. Workers were fed up with low pay, bad management and lethal working conditions at the company. Over the course of the next three days from 21 to 23 March 2017, the police went to extraordinary measures to stop a series of sit-ins and rallies across the country. While the march at Tizi-Ouzu was prevented by blockades and the arrest of the union leaders, police attacked peaceful protestors including women at a sitin at Sonelgaz’s distribution centre in Bejaia the next day. On the third day of the strike, police arrested some 400 trade unionists who attempted to protest outside the Sonelgaz headquarters in Algiers. Despite the violence and intimidation, SNATEGS recorded a spike in union subscriptions and thousands of workers took part in the strike. Propping up the Algerian economy Sonelgaz is the second largest enterprise in Algeria, employing more than 87,000 workers. It provides gas and electricity to the nation and for export across Africa and Europe. Its contribution to the Algerian economy, which is heavily dependent on oil and gas, is immense. However, as the government grapples with an economic slump due to the global drop in oil and gas prices, attacks on democratic unions in Algeria have increased. SNATEGS, as the only independent union representing workers at Sonelgaz, has faced some of the worst oppression by authorities. “Sonelgaz is the sole provider of gas and electricity in Algeria. It is a vital sector but workers’ basic salary is only 200 euros a month. In contrast, the basic salary in Morocco is 600 euros, even though Algeria exports electricity to Morocco and is the main provider of energy in North Africa”, says Mellal. SNATEGS, which was registered in 2013, has succeeded in rapidly boosting membership to more than 35,000 workers, the large majority of whom are under 35 years old. Its president, at age 37, is one of the youngest union leaders in the Arab world. But his success as a union leader has had a heavy toll. “As president of our union I am suffering. I am totally repressed. My career is destroyed. I lost my job three years ago”, Mellal recalls. He began working in the legal department at Sonelgaz in 2013. Just a year later he was fired for his union activities but worse was to come. Sentenced for whistleblowing In December 2016, Mellal was sentenced in absentia to six months in prison and a fine of 50,000 Algerian Dinars (US$455), after being accused of illegally obtaining documents. These documents, which were freely available online, exposed the inflation of electricity bills by Sonelgaz over a tenyear period affecting eight million households. Mellal has already lost an appeal against his sentence, and will be allowed one final chance to clear his name before his freedom is denied. Mellal also faces a further...