The government is striving to provide a regulatory and legal framework for the right to strike, as part of a serious, responsible and participatory dialogue with trade unions, Government Spokesperson, Mustapha Baitas, said on Thursday in Rabat.
Speaking during a press briefing following the Government Council, Baitas stated that after presenting draft organic law n° 97.15 defining conditions and procedures for exercising the right to strike, it would be, starting today, discussed in order to advance in this participatory approach and receive the different opinions within the Parliament.
After recalling that the organic law on the conditions and procedures for exercising the right to strike is at the top of the list of laws provided for in the 2011 Constitution, Baitas added that this draft is one of the reform projects on which the government is working.
He also noted that the government’s institutionalization of social dialogue is aimed at debating fundamental issues of great importance, and taking into account the demands of trade unions, which concern, first and foremost, the working class and its working conditions.
The government spokesman stated: “Of course, the right to strike is a constitutional right, but don’t we have the collective intelligence to sit down and work it out? This is what the government is doing within the framework of a serious, responsible and partnership-based dialogue with the unions”.
It should be noted that the unions do not seem to welcome the future law on strikes, due to the conditions and restrictions it sets out for the exercise of this right.
In their view, the law was drawn up unilaterally, without any prior consultation of the social partners, even though the main trade union movements should have been involved in the deliberations to make it more inclusive and better accepted, given that the law directly concerns them.
They also regret that consultation with union representatives was not an option chosen by the executive in the drafting of this law, even though extensive consultation should have been undertaken from the outset.
On the substance, the unions refuse to allow the law to be associated with criminal law, and consider that, rather than a law regulating strikes, it is a text restricting this right of workers, a right which, it should be remembered, is enshrined in the Constitution.
It should also be recalled that the leaders of the main trade unions unanimously declared, following the signing of the latest social agreement with the government, providing in particular for an increase in the minimum wage, higher wages for civil servants and a reduction in income tax, that the latter could not be used as a means of putting pressure on the unions to obtain concessions from them on the draft organic law relating to strikes.
For his part, Younes Sekkouri, Minister of Economic Inclusion, Small Business, Employment and Skills, said on Tuesday that the government was keen to ensure that the draft organic law n° 97.15 defining the modalities for exercising the right to strike “guarantees the rights enshrined in the Constitution and protects freedom of work”.
The government “ensures that this law also protects the freedom and continuity of work in companies, establishments and public services”, he stressed, adding that “the law on the right to strike must keep pace with the Morocco of the 21st century”.
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