Arab Trade Union Confederation backs Qatar rights reform

13 November 2015

Arab Trade Union Confederation backs international campaigns for Qatar rights reform

The Arab Trade Union Confederation (ATUC) – which represents union federations across the Arab and Middle Eastern region – has backed the campaigns by global union organisations to achieve justice for workers in Qatar.

Members of the ATUC general council, meeting in Casablanca, have resolved as follows:

After our review of the repeated attacks on trade union rights by the Government of Qatar, as well as the motives behind the complaint made by Qatar Airways against International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) general secretary comrade Sharan Burrow, and the actions of the international trade union organisations led by the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF).

We declare our unconditional support for Sharan Burrow and her work to enforce workers' rights and an end to modern varieties of slavery.

We support the ITUC in its campaign for better workers’ and human rights in Qatar, and also support the campaigns by union federations such as the ITF, BWI and IUF in their various sectoral campaigns for workers’ rights in Qatar.

We have decided to conduct a campaign in cooperation with democratic organisations in order to put pressure on the State of Qatar to give up its inhuman practices against workers, to reject its (Qatar’s) intransigence, and campaign for its approval of the trade union freedoms set out in international conventions and those of the International Labour Organization, of which Qatar is a member.

ITF Arab World regional secretary Bilal Malkawi commented: “This resolution is further proof of the will for change in Qatar across the Middle East.”

He continued: “The ITF’s continuing campaign for justice for Qatar Airways workers’ was born and shaped at the direct request of Arab World unions. This declaration by the ATUC is a vindication of all the campaigns for reform in Qatar.”

ENDS

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