The General Union of Algerian Workers (UGTA; , ) is the main Algerian

trade union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

, established February 24, 1956 with the objective of mobilizing Algerian labour against French colonial and capitalist interests. It was banned shortly afterwards, in May 1956. The union continued to operate clandestinely, playing a notable role in the eight-day strike of 1957 and establishing an underground

samizdat Samizdat (, , ) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the documents from reader to reader. The practice of manual rep ...

newspaper, ''L'Ouvrier algérien''. It became effectively subordinated to the ruling party, the Front de Libération nationale (FLN), during the subsequent years of independence under a single-party socialist government, while welcoming the nationalization policy the government pursued. In 1989, the government began to pursue a program of political liberalization, and a multiparty electoral system was rapidly installed. The UGTA took advantage of the new environment to establish some distance from the government, and oil and coal workers struck in March 1991, obtaining various concessions including

price fixing Price fixing is an anticompetitive agreement between participants on the same side in a market to buy or sell a product, service, or commodity only at a fixed price, or maintain the market conditions such that the price is maintained at a given ...

. This political experiment was interrupted in 1992 by the military, following an Islamist victory in the polls, and the

Algerian Civil War The Algerian Civil War (), known in Algeria as the Black Decade (, ), was a civil war fought between the Algerian government and various Islamist rebel groups from 11 January 1992 (following a 1992 Algerian coup d'état, coup negating an Islami ...

began. The UGTA denounced the new government policy of

economic liberalization Economic liberalization, or economic liberalisation, is the lessening of government regulations and restrictions in an economy in exchange for greater participation by private entities. In politics, the doctrine is associated with classical liber ...

under

International Monetary Fund The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution funded by 191 member countries, with headquarters in Washington, D.C. It is regarded as the global lender of las ...

guidelines, forced on it by the untenable debt situation. It sided strongly with the military against the generally anti-socialist Islamists, and its leader,

Abdelhak Benhamouda Abdelhak Benhamouda (12 December 1946 in Constantine – 28 January 1997) was an Algerian trade unionist. He was secretary-general of the General Union of Algerian Workers (UGTA) from 1990 until his assassination by anti-socialist Islamists in 1997 ...

, was assassinated by the latter on January 28, 1997. In 2000, the organization established a

working group A working group is a group of experts working together to achieve specified goals. Such groups are domain-specific and focus on discussion or activity around a specific subject area. The term can sometimes refer to an interdisciplinary collab ...

, the National Commission of Working Women, to address issues related to women's position.

References

External links

Algerian Civil War Trade unions established in 1956 Trade unions in Algeria African Regional Organisation of the International Trade Union Confederation National federations of trade unions {{Algeria-stub