Home

Vicious union-busting at Moroccan fish canner DOHA

05.02.16 Urgent Action
Printer-friendly version

979Over 500 workers in the Moroccan city of Agadir have been on strike since March 2015 at DOHA, part of the wealthy BICHA Group. DOHA workers, nearly 95% of whom are women, produce tinned fish and other products for worldwide export. The company, with the help of compliant legal and political authorities, has sought to dissolve the union, dismiss its members, criminalize and punish the strikers and confiscate the union leaders' home. CLICK HERE TO SEND A MESSAGE TO DOHA!

Workers at the Agadir DOHA plant formed a branch of the CDT in 2011. After a 20-day strike, local authorities under pressure from the popular movement sweeping the region urged the company to recognize the union. Beginning in 2014, however, management moved to have the union dissolved, imposed its own workplace delegates and stepped up pressure on workers, including denying paid toilet breaks. On March 6, 2015, management dismissed 51 workers; 45 of them were women, and 25 were CDT members. This provoked a strike, which continues to this day,

The company retaliated by hiring 500 new workers, in violation of the labour code, seeking punitive financial damages against 51 active union members and claiming MAD 3 million (EUR 278,000) in damages from union leader Rahmoun Abdellah. Since Abdellah cannot pay the fine, the court ordered 'precautionary confiscation' of his apartment, whose mortgage he is paying. The union has held solidarity sit-ins and protest marches as Abdellah's case has moved through the appeals process and the courts uphold the confiscatory penalty for defending his members.

You can support their struggle! CLICK HERE to send a message to the DOHA company, calling on it to recognize the union, reinstate the dismissed workers, drop all lawsuits against them and the union president and negotiate in good faith.