March 5 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The general secretary of the General Confederation of Algerian Workers, Salim Labatcha, presented his resignation this Sunday for “health” reasons, in an announcement that has caught the country’s main trade union organization off guard, according to what the union has advanced in a release.
The organization, until now immersed in a tough labor conflict with the Algerian government, has started an emergency meeting to choose Labatcha’s successor, according to a statement published by the Tout Sur L’Algerie portal.
Sources from the La Patrie portal estimate that the until now head of the Federation of Hydrocarbons Unions that is part of the confederation, Hamou Touahria, will be appointed acting general secretary until a more formal process is held.
This resignation comes as Parliament is discussing a proposed trade union law which, according to workers’ organizations, would severely restrict trade unionists’ room for manoeuvre.
The unions have directly asked the country’s president, Abdelmayid Tebune, to withdraw that law, while the president has defended the proposal as an attempt to reduce the number of national unions and thus facilitate dialogue with employers.
