Why are trade unions in the only two Arab countries with peace agreements with Israel spearheading campaigns against normalization?
The most fervent voices against normalization of relations with the State of Israel are heard among the professional unions of Egypt and Jordan, Rachelle Kliger writes in a long feature on the MidEast News website.
And because professional unions have a high status and are very well known they appear a lot in the public eye on channels like Al-Jazeera – and consequently are very influential.
In Egyptian perhaps the most vocal union hostile to normalization with Israel is the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate.
“In both Jordan and Egypt, journalists will be punished if they don’t toe the union’s line,” Yoram Meital, Director of the Chaim Herzog Center for Middle East Studies and Diplomacy at Israel’s Ben Gurion University,explains.
“But I should point out that there’s a very heated public debate about this and there is criticism of these professional unions.”
Union members forced to toe the line if they want to keep their jobs
“Labor unions oppose normalizing relations between Jordan and Israel. This is enshrined in their by-laws,” Samer Libdeh, Senior Fellow at the Center for Liberty in the Middle East, and Director of Interaction Forum in Jordan explains.
“All members of the labor unions are obliged to comply with these by-laws,” he said. “As a consequence, if an employee engages in any activities that are deemed contrary to the labor union by-laws, for example, by promoting peace or advocating for an improvement in relations between Israel and Jordan, then that employee may lose his labor union membership and ultimately, his job.”
Libdeh said that in Jordan, the position of the press union against normalization has a huge impact on the Jordanian public perception of Israel and the peace process.
Dissent against unpopular ruling regimes channelled thru unions
Yoram Meital, Director of the Chaim Herzog Center for Middle East Studies and Diplomacy at Israel’s Ben Gurion University, and author of Egypt’s Struggle for Peace, 1967-1977 said the professional unions have become prominent in Egypt and Jordan because of the internal political systems in these countries.
“My research showed that over the course of several decades, the party system in Jordan and in Egypt was emptied of any meaning,” he said. “I maintain that this political vacuum was filled by non-party movements, primarily the Muslim Brotherhood.”
“Because the parties were hardly felt in the political sphere, the professional unions became a framework that provided both a professional space to operate and also became a political framework,” Meital explained.
“The political forces that wanted to be involved didn’t find what they wanted in the parties but they did find this in the professional unions. The unions became a very important platform for expressing political opinions and not just for maintaining the rights of the workers in that profession.”
“The ruling parties in both Jordan and Egypt are relatively unpopular,” he continued. “In the context of this lack of popularity, almost the only venue where you have real political activists is the professional unions, and that’s why they’re so dominant.”
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