Foreign debt versus organised labour: reflections on the UGTT’s stance on IMF loans in post-uprising Tunisia

SUMMARY

In the wake of the Tunisian uprising in 2010–2011, the IMF vowed to support democratisation efforts, promising a novel approach attuned to the needs of the nation’s most marginalised people. However, IMF loan agreements garnered controversy for their conditionalities, raising doubts about the Fund’s ‘new’ strategy and its austerity-focused plans for economic restructuring. At the centre of the debt-critical movement, the country’s leading trade union organisation – the UGTT – positioned itself as a fierce opponent to the IMF. Against the backdrop of current talks for a new bailout, this briefing revisits the UGTT’s stance on two major loan agreements that Tunisia entered into after 2010.

KEYWORDS:

• IMF
• organised labour
• debt
• Tunisia

Acknowledgements

My sincere gratitude goes to my interlocutors from the UGTT and Tunisian civil society for their active participation in this research. I am thankful to Professor Ray Bush for his review, and to the entire ROAPE editorial team for their dedicated efforts in refining this piece.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Author’s translation from Arabic.

2 This refers to the reconciliation efforts spearheaded by the UGTT, the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts, the Tunisian Human Rights League, and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers following the 2013 political crisis.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dhouha Djerbi

Dhouha Djerbi is a PhD researcher in the Department of International Relations and Political Science at the Geneva Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID). A CAORC-Carnegie fellow at the Centre for Maghreb Studies, her main research focuses on gender dynamics of contentious politics in rural Tunisia. She is interested in the politics of indebtedness, economic restructuring and organised labour.