By- Radio ML
Anwar Ben Kaddour, Assistant Secretary-General of the Tunisian General Labour Union and one of the five members insisting on completing the work of the National Council, stated that the rest of the current executive office members have put forward a new proposal to advance the date of the national conference to January 2026 in order to end the current crisis.
Anwar Ben Kaddour said today, Wednesday, in a statement to the Tunis Afrique Presse Agency on the sidelines of a meeting at the headquarters of the Labour Union, which included representatives of universities and other union branches, that he sensed openness and a desire to maintain the cohesion of the labour organization through the series of meetings and negotiations with the rest of the executive office members.
Five members of the executive office of the labour organization, including Anwar Ben Kaddour, Taher Al-Mazi, Salah Al-Din Al-Salmi, Othman Al-Jalouli, and Mounem Amira, announced on December 14, following a general union meeting, their entry into an open sit-in starting from December 25 of last year, rejecting the situation that the organization has reached and demanding the advancement of the national conference from 2027 to 2025.
Ben Kaddour added that since the announcement of the intention of five executive office members to enter an open sit-in, meetings have continued to find a consensus formula with the rest of the executive office members to end the internal crisis that the central union is experiencing.
He pointed out that since the day before yesterday, Monday, negotiations have continued between four of the executive office members insisting on completing the work of the National Council held in September 2024, namely Othman Al-Jalouli, Taher Al-Mazi, Salah Al-Din Al-Salmi, and Mounem Amira, and four other members of the executive office, namely Sami Al-Tahri, Farouk Al-Ayari, Samir Al-Shafi, and Mohamed Al-Shabi (4+4), expressing his hope to reach a final agreement today, Wednesday, to end the unprecedented crisis of the central union.
Regarding the progress of the negotiations and consultations, Anwar Ben Kaddour confirmed that the internal regulations of the National Council, especially point 12, call for the national conference of the Labour Union to be advanced to the first quarter of 2025 instead of 2027. He continued by saying that due to the demand for four months to complete the work of the National Council and advance the conference to the first quarter of this year, and the failure to respond to this demand by the rest of the executive office members and the impossibility of holding the conference in the first quarter of this year, many representatives of regional unions and professional universities proposed holding the labour organization's conference at the latest in the first half of 2025.
The union official explained that negotiations with the rest of the executive members are still ongoing, highlighting that there is a kind of openness and understanding on their part, especially through their new proposal to hold the conference in January 2026 after they were insisting on ending their term in 2027. He noted that this new proposal was presented to the professional universities and regional unions demanding the completion of the work of the National Council and the activation of point 12 of the internal professional regulations, which are meeting today to reach a solution.
Anwar Ben Kaddour stressed that the negotiations and consultations with the rest of the executive office members are conducted with respect and responsibility for a higher goal, which is to maintain the continuity of the Labour Union and enter the upcoming conference in an atmosphere of brotherhood, highlighting that the rest of the executive office members who meet the legal conditions are free to apply for membership in the new executive office.