During the night of February 4th to 5th, 2010, on Meryem Mehdi's 56th day of hunger strike, we were harassed by police under the pretext that they had received a call concerning a person in distress. We suspect British Gas of being behind this in order to destabilize the women who were at the bedside of Meryem Mehdi. We denounce the roughness of the policemen which worsened the state of health of Meryem to a state of shock. Nassira Ghozlane had to explain to the police chief, who arrived after the departure of his men, that the striker had suspended her action following an invitation by British Gas to negotiate (for the sole purpose of making them leave). Without calling them, the Fire Brigade (paramedics) then arrived to transport her to hospital. After much negotiation, the police services left whilst reinforcements were sent to the Fire Brigade. The person in charge of SNAPAP's women's committee then contacted their commander and under threat of an official complaint, the latter ordered the firemen stationed at the entrance of the building to regain their stations.

Translation of this article on SNAPAP women's committee's blog.

People sometimes ask me “John, why should trades unions get involved with Twitter?” No, honest, they really do, my life is *that* exciting at times…

My standard response is that it all depends. The microblogging service Twitter is potentially attractive to unions as it's something of a liberal and Labour ghetto, and it gets a lot of column inches for being flavour of the moment and making people look modern. However, Twitter is almost a platform in search of a utility, and different people/unions might get very different things out of it, or of course nothing at all, depending on how they naturally want to communicate.

Before deciding how you might use Twitter in your union, it's worth thinking a bit about how your members and other people that you want to connect with will be using it themselves. Have a look at the profiles of some key people you’d want to communicate with - who they follow and who follows them. You can see patterns emerge that suggest the way they use Twitter, and how that might link in with you.

Skim-readers

Some people view Twitter as a reading list for whatever’s happening absolutely right this very moment. They follow people or organisations that interest them and when they log in, they see the latest updates - be they from Twitter celebrities, media outlets, or thought leaders in their sphere of interest.

It's not comprehensive - they'll never see more than a fraction of this 24/7 river of information that fits their interests, but that's not the point. They're more interested in the chance to get the very latest news, or tiny insights - updates too small or niche for normal news channels, but in a world of throwaway publishing, still of value to a specialist group.

The new Twitter lists feature has been really valuable to this group. They can split the people they follow into different topics – friends, profession, industry, etc – and follow just the relevant people when they want to be up to date on a particular topic.

Tweets will always be better received if you’re writing them manually, but for skim-readers, there’s also the possibility of automating your tweets, if you’ve something that you regularly produce in a standard format. Press releases might be an example here. Use a tool like Twitterfeed.com to take your website’s RSS feed of press releases (You do have one don’t you? Try open.dapper.net if you don’t), and send new items every hour to your Twitter account. You’ll get less readers than a properly managed feed, but at least some people who want to use Twitter for news alerts and who want your news will be interested in keeping tabs on you this way. If it takes off, then look at investing more time in writing original content for Twitter, but this is a fairly painless way to dip a toe in the water and see what happens.

If you’re publishing for skim-readers, try it out yourself first to see what others are getting out of it. If you’re maintaining a press room on Twitter for example, follow the journalists you’re interested in. If you’re publishing from a blog, follow other bloggers in your area. You’ll get a way of seeing the buzz amongst the people you’re interested in, and at the same time they’ll notice you in their follower lists and might be interested in checking out what you have to say too.

Beware. Being plugged into everything like this is stupidly addictive, and not always good news for nature’s procrastinators like me.

Networkers

Networkers build targeted lists like skim readers, but aim to use them to their professional advantage. They’ll follow people that they already know from their industry or interests, or influential people that they want to communicate with. They’ll use Twitter’s two-way features to follow up on other people’s tweets, making useful connections or contributing their own opinions.

Union officers with a particular specialism might like to work more in this way. An H&S practitioner could connect with other safety bodies, HR and medical sources and safety campaign groups, using retweets (where you forward on someone else’s tweet, with or without comment) to filter out interesting news from the wider community for your own readers.

It’s easy to get noticed if you’re bringing something useful to Twitter for those people who share your interests, and you may make useful new contacts you’d never normally come across, or be able to get useful responses from people who mightn’t answer (or even see) a cold email.

Chatterers

Some people prefer to use Twitter as a sort of time delay version of instant messaging, similar to Facebook status, but in a more extrovert series of interwoven conversations held in public. Chatterers will make much heavier use of replies (typing @ before someone’s username in a tweet draws their attention to it, whilst still keeping it public) and direct messages (DM - similar but hidden from anyone other than the sender and recipient).

Union branches might find this more useful, where the rep is more likely to be plugged in to members’ address books for regular conversation. Twitter gives you the ability to be contacted privately by members with concerns (if you and they already follow each other), or possibly a means for you to quickly solicit feedback on an issue.

It’s always good to make yourself open to members to communicate in the ways in which they’re most comfortable communicating – and for many this is now Twitter. The downside is that people might expect DM responses even more quickly than they’d get from email, and you’d end up putting in a lot of effort for only a smallish group of members who want to communicate that way.

Another issue to bear in mind is that anyone (such as an employer) could see all the people following the union, which some people might be reluctant to reveal, or worse might end up getting people into trouble.

Social searchers

Some people like to use Twitter to find out what the buzz is about a topic at any point, without necessarily building their own lists or followerships. They watch for and follow trending topics (Twitter lists the most popular topics at any one point for different countries) and hashtags (a convention in Twitter where you add a # in front of a word as a way of standardising keywords, so people can more easily find your tweet in searches – eg #trafigura).

Or they might use ‘social search’ engines like Topsy.com to find not the most relevant pages overall for a subject (as a traditional engine would provide) but the most relevant right now. Even the mainstream search engines like Google are moving towards factoring in this kind of social search (see Google's "latest results" box).

A union can make use of this technique by tweeting about topical news they may have, but first searching to see if other people talking about the issue are using a hashtag, and including that too. This will bring extra people to your tweets – only a few, but they’re guaranteed to be interested in the issue you’re talking about, which counts for a lot.

If you’re engaged in a campaign or dispute and will be sending a stream of tweets on it, invent your own hashtag for it. That way you can monitor more easily what others are saying about the issue (if the hashtag spreads), and find potential allies, as well as making sure your own tweets are all front and centre for anyone following the tag.

If you can co-ordinate supporters to all use the same hashtag, you might notice your issue trending, and you’ll get a lot of interest. Try to make clear how people can translate that interest into some kind of action. The flip side to trending of course is that it lasts for hardly any time at all before some celebrity does something funny, or someone invents a new 140 chars meme to spread, and that displaces you from the charts.

Hecklers

Twitter’s wide-open nature makes it an ideal space for people who want to say something publicly. Addressing a message @ someone – be they a union, individual or campaign target – lets everyone else see what was said. If you start an organisational Twitter account, you’ll get people who disapprove of particular decisions/personalities/whatever sending you slightly narky messages that they don’t really want you to respond to – It’s more like a form of cyber-heckling.

Don’t lose sleep about engaging with anything you find offensive – it’s very easy to get wound up about criticism appearing on the web, as it’s there for ever, but in Twitter’s case, people move on after about fifteen minutes. Most people aren’t expecting a reply, they’re just venting, but will be happy to get one. The handy thing about being so restricted in what you can write is that people don’t expect you to reply with volumes. It doesn’t take a long time for any organisation that issues press releases to find a web link to a statement that shows you do care about their issue (or gives an honest reasoning for why you disagree), and whilst it’s unlikely to sway them on the issue, many will appreciate that you at least took the time to respond.

Of course, all this applies to messages you yourself send out to public targets too. You can tie a union’s message to a target’s Twitter account by sending it @ them, but for more popular companies, it will be tomorrow’s chip paper within minutes.

An interesting Twitter application for unions is the Twitter petition – Act.ly has a great tool that lets you petition Twitter users. You write a short demand (actually pretty tricky!) and it sends from your account, tracking a page of people who retweet it. This results in lots of @ messages to the target, making sure they notice it. They have the opportunity to reply, and have that reply appended to the petition on Act.ly. Numbers taking these petitions are low so far, but given the low number of @ messages that most companies will be receiving compared to emails, it may be noticed more than a low volume email action, and has the benefit of every signature bringing a viral effect.

You can reflect on-side heckler activity in other ways too. A Twitterfall is a stream of content published in real time by other users about your issue – it can be a nice web feature to show just how often people are interacting with your ideas. Just make sure you’re not opening yourself up to a spot of griefing. There are Tweet moderating services out there – betas of Tweetriver and Tidytweet are both nice tools – which might sacrifice speed, but will spare your blushes.

Obsessives

And of course there are a large number of people who want to use Twitter for things precisely because they can. The kind of people who will wrestle with an iPhone app for 30 minutes to order a pizza, because it's more fun than ringing up in 2 minutes. These people love Twitter's extensibility, and are the reason there are so many thousands of lovingly coded apps out there that actually do very little other than make you think "that's pretty neat". When you're doing something clever with Twitter - run it past the "pretty neat" test to see if anyone in the real world might use it.

Some parting thoughts. In practical terms, I’d also recommend you use a Twitter client rather than the Twitter website itself. I like Hootsuite.com myself. And of course If you’re posting URLs to Twitter, do so with a URL shortener (otherwise they take a lot out of 140 chars) – ideally one like bit.ly that tracks clickthroughs so you can see if your tweets are being picked up and acted upon, or if you’re just talking to an empty room.

Twitter is low risk. If it doesn’t work out for you, just scrap it. You didn’t pay anything for it or need to drastically alter your comms strategy to make use of it, and most of your followers don’t really expect anything of you – they’re used to new people coming every day, and just as many old people leaving. Experiment with it – there are probably many other types of Twitter users out there amongst your membership or stakeholders, and actually putting a toe in the water may show you for the first time how you could be go about communicating with them.

A new weekly presentation of international labour news is now on the Internet.

The audiocast - called Solidarity News - started on Monday, February 1. The audiocast will remain on the RadioLabour site throughout its current week. New audiocasts will be posted every Monday morning.

RadioLabour is on the Internet at www.radiolabour.org.  It is also on Facebook, please join the RadioLabour page.

RadioLabour is the brainchild of Marc Belanger -- the founder of SoliNet, which was the first trade union online network back in the 1980s.

Solidarity News will focus on union and workers' activities and issues from around the world with special emphasis on emerging market and developing countries.

RadioLabour reporters will provide regular weekly presentations, but a special feature of the audiocast will be reports from unionists who want to report on particular events or publicize an activity of their organization.

Scripts of the audiocasts will be available as aids for unionists who want to learn the use of English as an additional language in the international labour movement.

For more information about RadioLabour, listen to the audiocasts, or provide reports, visit the RadioLabour site.  Or write directly to Marc at m.belanger@radiolabour.org

Reprise d'un article par Makhlouf Ait Ziane dans "La Tribune des Lecteurs" - Algérie - 31/01/10

Les intentions malhonnêtes des responsables de la société British Gas se sont confirmées avec le temps. Après avoir promis, lors d'une réunion avec le comité national de soutien aux travailleurs algériens la semaine passée, la réintégration et le paiement des dommages et intérêts à Meryem Mehdi, nous apprenons d'un communiqué rendu public hier par le comité de femmes Snapap que la société en question a renoncé à ses engagements. " Nous apprenons ce matin même par le biais de l'avocat de Mme Meryem Mehdi que British Gas a renoncé à négocier après avoir eu même à saisir l'avocat de cette dernière pour arranger la situation ", a indiqué le communiqué. Suite à ce renoncement le comité de femme de Snapap, en tant que porte parole de Mme Mehdi, ont démonté toute ouverture dans les négociations étant donné que rien d'officiel ne leur est encore parvenu. Cela se passe malheureusement selon elles sous les yeux du ministre de la tutelle. " Pourtant, c'est le ministre du Travail nous a annoncé l'intention de BG à négocier lors de la rencontre des représentants du CNSTA ", se sont-elles indignées, avant de revenir sur l'état de santé critique de la gréviste de la faim. Sur ce point le communiqué, a souligné que Mme Mehdi renonce à la prise de tous médicaments prescrits par ses médecins ainsi que les perfusions glucosés, salés ou enrichis en aminoven et autre nutrison dont on la soulageait pour tenir jusqu'à présent. Et son état de santé est très critique. " Bien que son entourage familial, ses amis, les médecins qui l'entourent et le comité de femmes craignent pour sa vie, nous ne pouvons que la soutenir et entamons d'autres actions pour dénoncer les pratiques néocoloniales et aussi dénouer le stato-quo dans les plus brefs délais car nous savons que ses revendications sont légitimes ", ont-elles encore mentionné. Bien que fatiguée et irritée par l'absence de répondant de l'Etat et de désintéressement total des premiers responsables du pays concernant son cas, le comité de femmes a indiqué que la contestatrice est déterminée à aller jusqu'au bout dans son action. " Mme Mehdi est déterminée à prouver aux responsables algériens, à British Gas Algérie et à l'international que son but est de dénoncer les pratiques de certaines compagnies étrangères à se comporter en terrains acquis ayant tous les droits ", a conclu le document. Notons enfin que Meryem Mehdi est en grève de la faim depuis le 8 décembre passé pour contester son licenciement abusif par les responsables de la société British Gas. Hier, elle a bouclé sa 52ème journée de grève.
M. A. Z.

The dishonest intentions of the persons in charge of British Gas are now confirmed. After having promised, at a meeting last week with the National Support Committee to Algerian workers (CNSTA), to pay damages to Meryem Mehdi, we learn from an official statement made public yesterday by the SNAPAP women's committee that the company has retreated from its engagements: "We learn this morning from Mrs. Meryem Mehdi's lawyer that British Gas has quit negotiations after approaching the latter with a proposition to arrange the situation", says the official statement.
Following this renouncement, SNAPAP women's committee, as a representative of Mrs. Mehdi, dismisses any account related by BG of an opening in negotiations since anything official has still to reach them. Unfortunately this occurs, according to SNAPAP, under the eyes of the government: "It is the Labour Minister who announced to us, BG's intention to negotiate during a meeting with representatives of the CNSTA", they say, angrily, before reiterating the critical state of health of the hunger striker.
On this point, the official statement stresses that Mrs. Mehdi has issued instructions giving up on all drugs prescribed by her doctors as well as glucose perfusions, salted or enriched in amino-acids and other nutritional elements which helped her hold on until now. Her state of health is very critical.
"Her family, her friends, her doctors and her support committee can only help her through actions to denounce the neo-colonial attitude of British Gas and try to reverse the status-quo. We know her claims are legitimate", they say.
Irritated by the absence of government reaction and the complete silence of the heads of state, SNAPAP's women's committee indicates that Meryem Mehdi is determined to fight to the end. "[She] is determined to prove to Algerian heads of state, to British Gas Algeria and to the whole international community that her only goal was to denounce the practices of foreign multinational companies behaving as though they were in conquered territories, the owners of law", the document concludes.
Let us note finally that Meryem Mehdi is on hunger strike since the 8th of December, 2009, protesting against her abusive dismissal by the persons in charge of the British Gas company. Yesterday, she completed her 52nd day of hunger strike.

Translation of an article by Maklouf Ait Ziane pour "La Tribune des Lecteurs" - 31 janvier 2010 http://www.tribune-lecteurs.com/event.html

 

"The state of health of Meryem Mehdi is worsening and she came close to death two days ago", affirmed yesterday in Algiers SNAPAP's general secretary, Nassira Ghozlane.

Meryem Mehdi is on her 50th day of hunger strike to protest against her abusive dismissal by British Gas. Doctors were at her bedside until 6:00 this morning, of which Doctor Khandek, specialist in internal medicine, Doctor Boukrif, specialist in pneumo-phthisiology and Doctor Farah, emergency specialist, accompanied by two nurses to reanimate the hunger-striker.

Mrs. Ghozlane added that "Meryem had vomited greenish matter on several occasions, yesterday. She cannot hold herself upright any more, weakened and depressed by her situation without alternative". And to continue: "One notes a very apparent paleness, a weight-loss quantified at more than 60%, hypoglycaemias and a falls in blood-pressure, as well as anaemia, all related to the dangerous degradation of her immune system, a very awkward cough and respiratory difficulties. She also presents a red infection on her body. To provide for its metabolic needs, perfusions delivering amino-acids and macromolecular aqueous solutions are administered as she refuses any food in the normal way", relates SNAPAP's general secretary.

Meryem Mehdi's life is in danger! She is threatened by an aggravation of the clinical and biological symptoms on her lungs and kidneys.

She has been evacuated several times to various hospitals in Algiers and even to certain private clinics. She was hospitalized on several occasions with the intensive care unit for septic shock and hypoglycaemia.

International trade-union organizations are supporting her
According to handouts by SNAPAP's Women's Committee (SNAPAP is an independent union of public service workers), several organizations including the Spanish CGT and the global federation, Public Services International, are calling on (BG) and the Algerian political community on the degradation of the health condition/health state/health status of Meryem.

SNAPAP is launching a call for international solidarity in order to extend the action of the Algerian trade unionists and to encourage all organizations and individuals who wish to express support for this cause. The Association of Maghreb workers in France (ATMF) expresses its absolute solidarity with Meryem Mehdi in her "legitimate" fight.

This organization requests that all mesures be implemented to oblige BG into maintaining Meryem in its employment.
The Algerian union of teachers in higher education (CNES) is also supporting Meryem by denouncing "the fatal and irreversible consequences on her health due to the silent complicity of the (Algerian) authorities".

Lastly, SNAPAP's Women's Committee vouches to continue its protest and denounce "the autism, contempt and dealings between the authorities and BG and calls once again on all organizations and people engaged in the defence of human rights at national or international levels, to intervene to put an end to this feudalism".

Translation of an article published on the 29th of January, 2010, by Manal Chikh, in "Le Temps d'Algérie"
http://www.letempsdz.com//content/view/31386/1/
http://snapapfemme.centerblog.net

Meryem Mehdi’s health is now seriously diminished by 46 days of hunger strike in protestation against her dismissal by British Gas.

The red line is crossed. Meryem does not want to receive visitors any more because she does not want to show her face “disfigured” by 46 days of strike.
Yesterday, I went to Union House to inquire of her situation. Her nurse told us quite simply that Meryem cannot receive people any more, even if they come to inform her of their support and solidarity.
Her nurse indicated to us that Mrs. Mehdi will soon be confronted with diseases which are likely to cost her her life.
“Today, I saw something abnormal in her look which is melting away. Since her first day of strike, she has lost exactly 45kg”, she stressed.
Her nurse did not fail to announce that “the hunger striker has received on several occasions, visits by her brothers and sisters who have tried to convince her to stop her hunger strike and proposing to find a better job than her old one.
However, she has refused all propositions and maintains her decision”.
Her parents have not visited yet.
According to the nurse, they are not aware of their daughter’s situation, and following the degradation of her health, her brothers undoubtedly do not want to announce the bad news to them. Questioned on the match of the day before yesterday between Algeria and the Ivory Coast, the nurse told us that the victim did not follow it. She did not want to see the match, because she can no longer move from her bed, and moreover, she is completely disconnected from the outside world. “However, hearing my joy at the end of the match, Meryem asked of Algeria had won and was very happy when I told her about our countries victory”.

Translated from an article by Cherif Hadjou in the “Tribune des Lecteurs” – 25/1/2010

L'état de santé de Meryem Mehdi, gréviste de faim depuis 46 jours après son licenciement par son employeur British Gas, se dégrade de plus en plus.
La ligne rouge est atteinte. Meryem ne veut plus recevoir de monde car elle ne veut plus montrer son visage "défiguré" par 46 jours de grève.
Se rendant hier à la Maison des Syndicats pour en savoir plus sur sa situation, son infirmière nous a signifié tout simplement que Meryem ne peut plus recevoir de monde, même s'il s'agit de lui faire part de soutien et de solidarité.
Son infirmière nous a indiqué que Mme Mehdi ne tardera pas à se confronter avec des maladies qui risquent de lui coûter la vie.
"Aujourd'hui, je vois quelque chose d'anormal en sa physionomie qui fond à petit feu.
Depuis son premier jour de grève à ce jour, elle a perdu exactement 45kg", a-t-elle souligné.
Dans un autre point, son infirmière n'a pas manqué de signaler que "la gréviste de la faim a reçu plusieurs fois la visite de ses frères et sœurs qui ont essayé de la convaincre à arrêter sa grève de faim en lui proposant de lui trouver un travail mieux que son ancien. Cependant, cette dernière a refusé toute proposition de ses frères et maintient sa décision".
Ses parents ne lui ont pas encore rendu visite.
Selon cette dernière, ils ne sont pas au courant de la situation de leur fille, et suite à la dégradation de sa santé, ses frères sans doute ne veulent pas leur annoncer la mauvaise nouvelle.Interrogée sur le match d'avant-hier entre l'Algérie et la Côte d'Ivoire, l'infirmière nous a dit que la victime ne l'a pas suivi. "Elle n'a pas voulu voir le match, car elle ne peut plus se déplacer de son lit, et de plus, elle est totalement débranchée du monde extérieur. Cependant, en m'entendant crier de joie, après la fin de la rencontre, Meryem m'a demandé si l'Algérie avait gagné et elle était heureuse quand je lui ai annoncé la victoire de notre pays", a-t-elle signalé.

Article de Cherif Hadjou dans la Tribune des lecteurs (Algérie) - 25/01/2010

 

 

Comme nous avons souvent vu, les entreprises traitent différemment leurs employés quand elles "jouent à domicile" que quand elles jouent ailleurs.

En Algérie, une employée de British Gas de 42 ans meurt dans l'indifférence relative. En grève de la faim depuis le 9 décembre 2009, sa vie est sérieusement en danger, s'il n'est pas déjà trop tard.

Meryem Mehdi a été embauchée en mai 2007 par le groupe BG (British Gas) comme administratrice et coordonnatrice d'opérations à Hassi Messaoud. Reconnue dans son travail, elle dit avoir été une victime de discrimination, ne recevant pas l'égalité des augmentations de salaires de ses collègues masculins. Une femme célibataire discète dans un environnement "fait pour les hommes", c'est à peine étonnant qu'elle parle aussi de harcèlement moral. Finalement, en novembre 2009, elle est licenciée par BG après avoir refusé une proposition "impossible à accepter" modifiant son régime de travail vers une semaine de 5 jours sur 7.

Certains diraient que conserver son emploi dans une compagnie reconnue comme British Gas, c'est déjà un privilège. Ils diraient "hystérique" de faire une grève de la faim pour si peu !

Mais il faut comprendre que Hassi Messaoud est une forteresse construite dans le Sahara comme base d'opérations pour les compagnies pétrolières, environ 850 kilomètres au sud d'Alger. Un endroit qui pourrait être défendu par des militaires. Impossible de visiter sans permissions spéciales et sans subir des contrôles aux postes de sécurité à chaque fois que vous passeze le périmètre. Il n'y a pratiquement aucun confort d'une ville normale. Les conditions de vie sont celles du désert, autour de 50°s dans la journée et de 0° la nuit. C'est pourquoi ces régimes de travail spéciaux existent. Personne ne voudrait vivre dans cet endroit de manière permanente. La plupart des ouvriers laissent leurs familles dans les climats plus cléments et les rejoignent au cours des périodes de repos. Il serait impossible d'envisager de visiter sa famille pour un week-end, et encore moins, chaque week-end. Les autobus sont lents et les véhicules tout terrain, pour ceux qui ont les moyens, trop inconfortables.

Ensuite, il y a la question légale. Selon le syndicat qui a pris sa défense, le SNAPAP, l'article 4 de son contrat stipule que son "régime de travail est de quatre semaines suivies de quatre semaines de repos. Cependant, Meryem Mehdi peut être transférée à d'autres sites pour des raisons professionnelles mais toujours sous le même régime dit 4x4". En changeant ceci, British Gas a rompu son contrat, pas Meryem Mehdi. Par conséquent, en vertu de la loi algérienne, BG n'avait aucun motif légal de la licencier.

Si une grève de la faim peut sembler toujours un recours extrême, SNAPAP rappelle le cas d'une autre employée licenciée par British Gas à Alger. Son cas a été défendu devant la Justice qui a ordonné sa réintégration dans l'entreprise. British Gas refuse toujours d'appliquer le jugement. Meryem Mehdi n'attendait pas beaucoup du système judiciaire de son pays et a décidé de s'engager dans une grève de la faim non seulement pour attirer l'attention de ses concitoyens sur sa situation mais également sur la leur.

En dépit de la réaction des médias et des manifestations quasi-quotidiennes devant leurs bureaux, devant le ministère de travail algérien et devant l'ambassade britannique, British Gas a refusé tout dialogue avec le comité de soutien à Meryem Mehdi ou avec le SNAPAP.

En Algérie, le syndicat officiel, l'UGTA, est connue pour sa corruption et sa complicité avec le pouvoir. Certains diraient qu'il ne représente pas les travailleurs. Les syndicats indépendants récemment formés tels que le SNAPAP tentent de défendre les droits individuels des salariés, mais s'ils sont reconnus dans le secteur public, leur reconnaissance est entravée dans le secteur privé. C'est pourquoi Meryem Mehdi n'a trouvé personne pour l'aider à se défendre lorsqu'elle était employée à BG. C'est également la raison pour laquelle les journaux parlent d'elle comme un "martyre" car elle est disposée à perdre sa vie pour faire avancer cette situation.

Les médias parlent de "hogra", signifiant le mépris, le dédain, l'offense… Le mot a été utilisé la première fois pour décrire l'attitude coloniale française envers les Algériens "de souche" avant leur guerre de la libération.

En termes de responsabilité sociale, British Gas a dépassé les bornes ! Si la compagnie ne revient pas sur sa position, si elle laisse Meryem Mehdi mourir, l'implication serait qu'elle essaie délibérément de provoquer les sentiments des nationalistes et des extrémistes religieux afin de maintenir et développer ses affaires via des liens douteux avec le pouvoir.

S'il y a des syndicalistes de British Gas lisant ceci, merci de reprendre ce cas.

Liens en Français :
http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/show_news.pl?country=Algeria&langcode=fr
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=198798037987

Liens en Anglais :
http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/show_news.pl?country=Algeria&langcode=en
http://bentaljazair.wordpress.com/2010/01/09/britishgas-worst-place-to-work-in-algeria/

As we have often seen at LabourStart, "good companies at home" often treat their workers completely differently when they operate elsewhere.

In Algeria, a 42 year-old British Gas employee is dying in relative indifference. On hunger strike since 9th December 2009, her life is in serious danger, if it is not already too late.

Meryem Mehdi was hired in May 2007 by BG Group (British Gas) as administration and operations coordinator in Hassi Messaoud. Commended in her work, she says that she was a victim of discrimination, not receiving equal pay rises to her male colleagues. A single woman keeping herself to herself in an environment "made for men", hardly surprisingly, she also speaks of harassment. Ultimately, in November 2009, she was dismissed by BG after refusing an "impossible to accept" proposition modifying her working regime to a normal 5 day working week.

Some would say that if you've still got a job in a top company like British Gas, why argue that? Some would think it hysterical to go on hunger strike for so little!

But you need to understand that Hassi Messaoud is a petroleum fortress constructed in the Sahara as a base for the oil companies, about 850 kilometres south of Algiers. The sort of place you could send troops to defend. You can't visit without special permissions and you have to undergo checks at security posts every time you cross the perimeter. There are practically no comforts of a normal town. Living conditions are those of the desert, in the 50°s in daytime and around 0° at night. That's why these special working regimes exist. No one would want to live in this place permanently. Most of the workers leave their families in more clement climates and rejoin them during rest periods. It would be impossible to envisage visiting ones family over a weekend. Buses are slow and four-wheel drives, for those who have the means, too uncomfortable.

Then there is the legal question. According to the union defending her, SNAPAP, article 4 of her contract stipulates that her "working regime is 4x4, four working weeks followed by four weeks of rest. However, Meryem Mehdi may be transferred to other sites for professional reasons but still under the same working regime". By changing this, British Gas breached her contract, not Meryem Mehdi. Hence, under Algerian law, BG had no legal grounds to dismiss her.

If a hunger strike still seems extreme, SNAPAP refers to another employee sacked by British Gas in Algiers. Her case was heard before a Court of Justice which ordered her reinstatement. However, British Gas still refuses to apply the ruling. Meryem Mehdi did not expect much from her country's legal system and decided to engage in a hunger strike not only to draw people's attention to her situation but also to their own.

Despite media reaction and near-daily sit-ins in front of their offices, the Algerian Labour Ministry and the British Embassy, British Gas has refused to negotiate with SNAPAP representatives or Meryem Mehdi's support committee.

In Algeria, the main union, UGTA, is known for its corruption and complicity with the "powers that be". Some would say that it does not represent workers. The recently formed independent unions such as SNAPAP try to defend individual workers rights, but they are only recognized in the public sector and are denied recognition in private enterprise. This is why Meryem Mehdi found no one to help her defend her case at BG. It's also the reason that newspapers are speaking of her as a "martyr" as she is willing to lose her life on this point.

Media are speaking of "hogra", meaning contempt, disdain, offence, scorn... The word was first employed to describe the French colonial attitude to Algerians before their war of liberation.

In terms of social responsibility, British Gas has crossed the line! If they do not back down, if they let Meryem Mehdi die, the implication would be that they are deliberately trying to kindle nationalist and extreme religious feelings in order to maintain business via dubious links with officialdom.

If there are any British Gas unionists reading this, please take on this case.

Links in French:
http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/show_news.pl?country=Algeria&langcode=fr
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=198798037987

Links in English:
http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/show_news.pl?country=Algeria&langcode=en
http://bentaljazair.wordpress.com/2010/01/09/britishgas-worst-place-to-work-in-algeria/