Critical junctures, labour unions, and social dialogue in Tunisia and Lebanon: Implications for the social contract

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the evolution of social dialogue institutions in Lebanon and Tunisia between 2010 and 2017. Both countries faced critical junctures, but their institutions pursued divergent courses. The national social dialogue institution was revamped in Tunisia to increase participation in policymaking, whereas it was reinstated in Lebanon without addressing its institutional flaws. By building on these developments, this paper makes two theoretical contributions. First, it argues that the nature of political interference in organized labour prior to the critical juncture influences its subsequent role. Labour neutralization in Lebanon was founded on sectarian politics that co-opted national leadership and bound rank-and-file to sectarian clientelism. Labour pacification in Tunisia harmed executives, whereas local unionists remained independent. After the critical juncture, Tunisian organized labour revitalized itself, aided by rank-and-file autonomy. It then made a strategic choice to reconsolidate the tripartite system with enhanced involvement of the traditional labour and capital organizations in policymaking. Lebanese organized labour was unchallenged by its rank-and-file. It maintained ties with political elites. Second, these paths illustrate the differences between social contracts. Participation in policy elaboration is among the deliverables exchanged between political elites and social actors in Tunisia but not in Lebanon.

KEYWORDS:

• Social dialogue
• labour union
• critical juncture
• union autonomy
• political interference

Introduction

Social dialogue is a consultation-based mechanism aiming to reform the labour market in a consensual manner. It represents a new form of corporatist arrangements, implemented since the 1990s, even in contexts deprived of traditional corporatist structures. The European Union (EU) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) have promoted it across developing countries (ILO, 1999; Zaafrane & Mahjoub, 2000). Social pacts’ adoption is one strategy that could be employed to give social dialogue a more tangible form (Castater & Han, 2018; Hamann et al., 2015). Governments, labour unions, employers’ organizations and occasionally chosen civil society interest groups negotiate these pacts to reform the labour market and welfare state. Social pacts may lead to the (re)establishment of a national council of social dialogue (Kim & van der Westhuizen, 2015). However, social pact projects may fail (Castater & Han, 2016) and may take various trajectories once agreed upon (Visser & Rhodes, 2011). Understanding the factors that facilitate or impede the establishment of a social pact and the (re)institutionalization of social dialogue is therefore essential.

In a broader sense, participation in policymaking is a significant dimension of the social contract that defines the government-society relationship (Loewe et al., 2021). Governments can either monopolize the policymaking process or allow civil society to participate. In this special issue, Loewe et al., (in press) suggest that changes in the framework conditions, foreign involvement, or a single incident are among the elements affecting social contracts. This research examines drivers of change in labour market policymaking participation, which is concretized through social dialogue institutions.

This paper employs historical institutionalism concepts such as ‘critical juncture’ to assess the development of social dialogue institutions, as well as concepts pertaining to union power and government-labour interactions prior to the critical juncture. By contrasting the contexts of two distinct cases with divergent outcomes, it investigates the conditions that precipitated the reconfiguration of national social dialogue institutions following critical junctures. Lebanon reached a critical juncture in the 2005 as a result of political upheavals like the mass mobilization of 2005. With Ben Ali’s departure from power in 2011, Tunisia saw the end of authoritarianism. By tracing these institutions’ evolution and considering social actors’ prerogatives, it seeks to comprehend organized labour’s roles in these reforms. At a critical juncture, structural constraints become less restrictive. Early explanations of the critical juncture’s outcomes took preceding conditions into account (Collier & Collier, 1991). Recent contributions to this understanding have highlighted the significance of strategic choices made by key actors. On this basis, this article’s purpose is to analyse the preceding conditions of organized labour that enabled or prevented it from playing a role in the post-critical juncture phase. It also examines the strategic decisions made at post-critical junctures.

My findings suggest that, while union power is crucial, the legacy of the political dynamic preceding critical junctures should not be overlooked. Specifically, the nature of the political elites’ intervention intended to co-opt organized labour matters. Moreover, when organized labour successfully revitalizes itself, the strategic decisions it formulates following such a juncture may prove to be pivotal. Prior to the critical juncture, the Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail (UGTT) faced an authoritarian regime. This regime neutralized national and regional leadership while leaving the ranks autonomous. After the critical juncture, the UGTT played a vital role and made the strategic decision to re-consolidate the tripartite system while advocating for a more effective consultation procedure by establishing the National Council of Social Dialogue (NCSD). In contrast, the political elites in Lebanon reconfigured the structure of the General Confederation of Lebanese Workers (GCLW) based on sectarian considerations to co-opt it. Executives and rank-and-file had ties to political elites. Weakened by the critical juncture, those elites agreed to collaborate on social dialogue initiatives and to re-establish the Economic and Social Council (EcoSoC). Despite a lack of political will to alter the policymaking process, the political elites consciously chose to engage in a social dialogue. The nature of the intervention to co-opt the GCLW prevented it from questioning the political regime’s strategic choice. Consequently, following the critical juncture, the position of Tunisian traditional labour and capital organizations within the NCSD improved, while the participation of Lebanese social actors within the EcoSoC remained unchanged. This paper concludes by asserting that after the critical juncture, participation in policymaking was transformed in Tunisia but not in Lebanon.

The paper is structured as follows. The first section introduces the framework based on the social contract analytical concept, the critical juncture literature, and the organized labour role afterwards. It illustrates how social dialogue institution reform can be used to study a key dimension of the social contract: participation in policymaking. To explain those reforms, it borrows the critical juncture concept from the historical institutionalism approach, then mobilizes the power resource approach, which focuses on the sources of labour power, and the comparative politics literature, which advances our understanding of labour autonomy by distinguishing between internal and external autonomy. It spells out the main objective of this study, which is to analyse the impact of different natures of political intervention (that is, leadership, rank-and-file cooptation, or both) prior to the critical juncture on organized labour’s role afterwards. The second section discusses methodological considerations. It describes the selection technique that relies on the contrast of contexts, aiming to emphasize the differences in how the two cases responded to social dialogue initiatives. The third section examines the evolution of national social dialogue institutions. The fourth section examines the organized labour position before the critical juncture to elucidate the development of these institutions in each country. The final section summarizes the paper’s theoretical contributions and their implications for the social contract.

Theoretical framework: Social contract, critical junctures and labour’s power

Social contract and labour market: Social dialogue as a mechanism of participation in the policy elaboration process

At the societal level, state-society relations can be analysed through the lens of the social contract concept. Loewe et al. (2021) analyse the social contract’s scope in terms of the parties who accepted its conditions. Social contracts ‘do not necessarily involve all social groups – at least not in the same way’ and they ‘can be established or ended without’ (Loewe et al., 2021, p. 5) one or more social groups consent. This remark underlines the power differential between social groups. Then, a social contract is established when ‘powerful societal groups or a powerful alliance of societal groups’ (Loewe et al., 2021, p. 5) agree to it. Another aspect of the social contract is its substance. It refers to the 3 Ps that the government agreed to provide to the involved actors: protection, provision, and participation. This article focuses on actors’ participation in the process of policy formulation, which can range from minimal to substantial. One would expect that contracting parties would be granted access to the process of policy formulation, while weaker actors that are excluded from the social contract do not participate in such a process.

Social contract’s core dimensions manifest themselves also in the labour market and are laid down through state-labour relations in the field of industrial relations. For instance, participation in the process of policy formulation, which involves non-working citizens and issues of political participation unrelated to the labour market, is concretized in the labour market through a specific sectoral arrangement, that is, the social dialogue institutions. Social dialogue is a mechanism designed to ensure organized labour and capital participation in the socioeconomic policymaking process. In recent decades, the adoption of tripartite social pacts has been one concrete means of fostering and shaping social dialogue. Social pacts refer to ‘formal agreements of social concertation between the state, unions and employers that seek to facilitate adjustment in the areas of wage setting, the labour market, and welfare policies’ (Avdagic et al., 2011, p. 3). These pacts can arise for a variety of reasons, such as a response to emergencies, exogenous pressures, economic issues, or a weak government. They can also result in a renegotiation of the institutionalization of social dialogue at the national level (Avdagic et al., 2011, p. 12).

This paper investigates the development of social dialogue institutions in the industrial relations policy field so as to better comprehend a particular substance of the social contract, which is the participation in socioeconomic policy elaboration for contracting parties. The inclusion or exclusion of organized labour in policymaking is thought to be indicative of this dimension of the social contract. More precisely, labour inclusion in policy elaboration refers to labour being a contracting party and participating in the process of policy development as one of the deliverables provided by the government to the contracting parties. Changes in the social dialogue (such as the social pact’s emergence and social dialogue re-institutionalization at the national level) imply an alternation in the state’s relationship and interactions with organized labour and capital. Such transformation is ‘central to the redefinition of the newly emergent social contract’ (El-Haddad, 2020, p. 2).

Drivers of change: Critical junctures, organized labour power, and political intervention

To gain a deeper understanding of changes in social dialogue institutions, I draw from the critical juncture literature of historical institutionalism and organized labour power at those junctures. A critical juncture is defined as ‘a specific historical period in which specific political choices or the emergence of a specific historical alternative strongly predispose a given case to follow one path of change, and not others’ (Brady & Collier, 2010, p. 323). One line of thought that elucidates critical junctures’ outcomes emphasizes preceding conditions (Acemoglu & Robinson, 2012, p. 106; Collier & Collier, 1991). Here, small occurrences and random causes determine the emerging path (Capoccia & Kelemen, 2007). A second line focuses on strategic actors’ choices and power asymmetry under conditions of uncertainty (Capoccia & Kelemen, 2007). Important to the explanation are the political process and the decisions of influential actors (Capoccia, 2016; Capoccia & Kelemen, 2007). As stated by Bernhard (2015, p. 978), ‘Contingency means that more than one outcome exists, thus precluding structural determination. This is where agency comes into play’.

Recent trends incorporate both antecedent conditioning and contingency. According to Slater and Simmons (2010, p. 889), critical junctures are ‘typically moments of expanding agency, not complete contingency’. Soifer (2012) distinguishes between ‘permissive’ and ‘productive’ conditions of the critical juncture. Permissive conditions ‘represent the easing of the constraints of structure’ which ‘increase the causal power of agency’ (p. 1574). The outcome is then determined by ‘productive’ conditions in the presence of ‘permissive’ conditions (p. 1573). Similarly, Riedl & Roberts (2022, p. 139) stated that ‘real-world events always have some combination of contingency and determinism from past sequences […] and that attention to the degree of contingency versus determinism can help us to understand exactly how critical junctures work in two distinct ways’.

An additional facet to weigh when examining critical junctures is the concept of a ‘negative case’, in which the consequences of the critical period amount to nothing more than a return to the pre-critical juncture settings. As stated by Capoccia and Kelemen (2007, p. 352), ‘contingency implies that wide-ranging change is possible and even likely but also that re-equilibration is not excluded’. Similarly, Soifer (2012, p. 1579) explains that ‘where permissive conditions are present but productive conditions are absent, can be seen as crisis without change, or a case of ‘“missed opportunity”’’.

These arguments can be applied to the organized labour role following a critical juncture. The antecedent conditions can be examined through the lenses of the labour union’s power resources before the critical juncture. The UGTT has sources of power that the GCLW does not, which distinguishes the two confederations from one another (Madi, 2023). For instance, the institutional legacy prior to the critical juncture influences labour’s role during transition. Diverse patterns of labour’s incorporation into the political sphere produced various consequences (Collier & Collier, 1991). Tunisia adopted a corporatist structure (e.g., tripartite arrangements) and Lebanon a more pluralistic one. These patterns had varying impacts on labour power, but both countries had centralized confederation structures. Furthermore, the Tunisian labour union possesses a level of associational power that was absent in the Lebanese confederation. Nonetheless, the latter demonstrated a vibrant organizational dynamic at various points in time.

This article sheds light on the political intervention’s impact on labour power. Union revitalization studies conceive unions ‘as contingent, membership-based organizations that can suppress or unleash democratic participation’ (Turner, 2005, p. 392), but the power resource approach does not fully account for the impact of government-union interaction on union democracy. As stated by Lévesque and Murray (2010, p. 336), ‘A full account of union power (.) requires that we look at a broader range of its constitutive elements’, including other players’ capacity. The approach emphasizes the relevance of union internal deliberative vitality to enhancing associational power (Lévesque & Murray, 2010, p. 338). Member participation is ‘one of the dimensions which is crucial for trade union renewal’ (Schmalz et al., 2018, p. 120). This dimension encompasses not only fundamental deliberative structures (such as delegate networks and union-level communication) but also the engagement’s quality in these structures (e.g., passive or active engagement, accountable leadership). Nevertheless, political intervention may affect this union power source.

The comparative politics literature distinguishes between internal (i.e., local unions and national leadership) and external autonomy (i.e., government-union relations) (Bishara, 2020). Kraus (2007) stresses the importance of union autonomy in analysing African unions’ role during transitions. The author stated that ‘major strikes and protests tended to originate in the worker’ consciousness of falling wages and living standards’ (p. 268). LeBas (2011, p. 40) attributes unions’ role in Zimbabwe and Zambia during transitions to the political regime’s permissibility of internal labour autonomy, whereas state control in Kenya explains the union’s lack of role.

Autonomy is crucial for advocating critical viewpoints on government policy. Internal autonomy results in workers willingness to strike, protest, and hold union leaders accountable. This, in turn, compels union leaders to advocate for involvement in decision-making processes (Kraus, p. 271–272). For example, union elections may promote more radical leaders than government-favoured ones, and union leadership’s incapacity to control wildcat strikes may make union more receptive to grassroots demands than state-imposed ones. Consequently, a state-allied union will gradually become an oppositional actor (LeBas, 2011, p. 52).

Government approaches towards unions can occur in various forms and in diverse settings. One governmental option is to engage unions in corporatist arrangements. Nevertheless, the relationship between corporatism and labour autonomy is intricate because corporatism contexts exhibit ‘such a diversity of political relationships and of goals on the part of elites who introduce’ them (Collier & Collier, 1979). Various constraints and inducements can sustain co-opted unions or utilize organizational inducements for union leaders. For instance, corporatist regimes in Zimbabwe and Zambia granted workers autonomy, while the one in Tanzania did not (LeBas, 2011, pp. 40–41). Having access to institutional channels is distinct from being coopted. Government approaches to labour autonomy can also be examined beyond corporatist settings.

The reasons behind internal autonomy’s variation across unions remain unclear (Bishara, 2020, p. 179). Furthermore, significant union/worker protests occurred in countries with formerly tightly controlled union (Kraus, 2007, p. 271). Stanojevic (2003) examined the influence of political intervention, although he concentrated on the government’s ideological orientation, which could result in union inclusion or exclusion, rather than explaining how such intervention affects the confederations. The state-labour relationship deserves careful consideration since governmental intervention forms remain understudied. Unions must have power sources and the ability to mobilize them (Korpi, 1974; Lévesque & Murray, 2010), but political intervention can affect such an ability.

Drawing upon this theoretical framework, this article elucidates the outcomes after the critical juncture by noting the distinct antecedent conditions of two confederations, with particular emphasis on the political intervention that sought to neutralize them. It aims to comprehend how diverse interventions affect confederations’ roles following critical junctures. This implies that this dimension may, to certain extent, have its own influence. In the 1990s, political events revealed that, following fluctuating ties with the political regime, both confederations were subject to political tutelage. In both countries, labour was a complicating factor for the political regime strategy, and the latter responded with co-optation. Following decade-long tensions between the UGTT and the Bourguiba regime (1978–1987), the Ben Ali regime established a new UGTT leadership in 1989. The Lebanese government neutralized the labour confederation in the late 1990s in response to widespread protests. This study asserts that the type of political intervention aimed at co-opting organized labour is significant in determining its role after a critical juncture. Political intervention may compromise either internal or external autonomy, or both. Then, antecedent conditions can either facilitate or impede union revitalization following a critical juncture. A revitalized union could potentially assume a strategic function in the post-juncture period. The UGTT made the strategic choice to consolidate social dialogue structures with improved prerogatives for historical labour and capital confederations. In Lebanon, pre-existing conditions hindered union revitalization; hence, the critical juncture was a missed opportunity to restructure social dialogue institutions. Through a comparison of two distinct cases featuring divergent outcomes, this paper posits that the nature of the political intervention enhances the possibility of certain outcomes without rendering them inevitable.

Methodology and case selection

This paper utilizes a qualitative methodology. It draws on a wider research project on labour reforms since the 1990s in Lebanon and Tunisia. A total of 51 interviews with social actors and government representatives were conducted in both countries between 2017 and 2019.

Lebanon and Tunisia are two dissimilar cases that got different outcomes in terms of the research problem (i.e., social dialogue’s transformation after 2010 and its implications for the social contract). In contrast to the cohesive Tunisian national identity, Lebanese society is fragmented along confessional lines. Political confessionalism (that is, the political representation of the country’s constituent confessional communities), inherited from the Ottoman era and perpetuated by mandated French authorities, is institutionalized by the constitution (Article 95) and the 1936¹ decree. In addition to Tunisia being authoritarian before 2011 and Lebanon being historically democratic, the two cases also differ in their states’ autonomy and capacity. Tunisia has implemented developmental strategies (import substitution industrialization and export-led ones, respectively) and established the ‘most developed welfare state institutions’ in the region (Cammett et al., 2015, p. 5). Confessional communities captured the Lebanese state, which has historically been less interventionist in the economy. Overall, the two countries have cross-case differences contributing to the diverging social dialogue outcomes.

Therefore, this paper uses the contrast of contexts strategy for case selection (Della Porta & Keating, 2008, p. 216; Skocpol & Somers, 1980). This strategy exposes each case’s distinctive features (Skocpol & Somers, 1980). It depicts chronologically each experience, preserving a sense of national particularities and historical integrity. It draws attention to how different the cases are and how every single process of change plays out within each context (Collier & Collier, 1991). Tunisia illustrates the social dialogue dynamics in single-party regimes that witnessed critical junctures after the 2011 popular uprisings in the MENA region.² It represents the most successful case of institutional reform during the democratic transition. In Lebanon, the Syrian army’s departure in 2005 triggered a critical juncture, resulting in political alliances’ restructuring. By examining Lebanon, this paper considers interventions in democratic setting. According to Kraus (2007, p. 270), in countries with somewhat democratic institutions, unions have a greater impact during transitions because they have had the opportunity to acquire autonomy and engage in strikes and protests. Then, one would anticipate that the Lebanese confederation would play a significant role, given that it has previously had autonomy and participated in strike and protests. Also, the two cases illustrate critical junctures’ occurrence, respectively, in a positive and a negative case. Reform outcomes in Lebanon were unfavourable due to the persistence of the same pre-critical juncture social dialogue conditions. Social dialogue initiatives occurred during the same time frame, but it is worth noting that the political opening post-juncture was more profound in Tunisia compared to the situation in Lebanon.

The point of the comparison is to present the rich details of the two countries and reveal their disparate answers to social dialogue initiatives. It makes more transparent the divergence among the ways in which the two cases have responded to those initiatives. In qualitative comparative-analysis the ‘relationships under analysis are probabilistic and partial’ and an explanatory factor ‘must be looked at in conjunction with other explanations’ (Collier and Collier, 1991, p. 20). The comparative method is combined with the technique of process tracing, which is employed to get an in-depth assessment of each country’s context and trace the trajectory of the studied phenomenon over time (Hall, 2003). The historically contextualized narratives show that, although both countries have encountered critical junctures and engaged in social dialogue initiatives, their national responses to these initiatives and the role of organized labour in them have varied.

Cases under study: National social dialogue institutions evolution

Signed in 2010 by economic and political actors, the Lebanese social pact reiterated the necessity of reactivating EcoSoC,³ which was accomplished in 2017.⁴ EcoSoC originated from the 1989 Taif Agreement, which proposed constitutional amendments. The path to making this council a reality was not particularly straightforward, since a major constitutional reform occurred in 1990 without the EcoSoC being institutionalized. The Council’s law was adopted in 1995.⁵ In 1999, the government issued a decree establishing the first general assembly, but the EcoSoC could only fulfil one three-year mandate (1999–2002). Disagreements within the government over the representation of political parties in the Council prevented the issuance of a new decree to designate a new general assembly.

The context of EcoSoC’s elaboration is revealing. On the one hand, the President of the French Economic, Social and Environmental Council (ESEC) presented it during an official visit to Lebanon prior to EcoSoC’s Law ratification (Gemayel, 2008), but the EcoSoC has fewer responsibilities than its French counterpart. France possesses a rather weak corporatist system that lacks a prominent role for social partners, but the ESEC, in addition to its advisory function, must be consulted on specific economic, social and environmental issues. Prime ministers, National Assembly presidents and Senate presidents can request ESEC consultation. The right to self-refer a question is guaranteed, except for questions pertaining to draft legislation, which must be requested by the Prime Minister. Any citizen may petition the Council to review a matter if he presents a petition with at least 500,000 signatures. The legislator bolstered the ESEC’s role by requiring the Prime Minister to respond publicly to ESEC notices. ESEC autonomy is reflected in the fact that members are appointed directly by their respective professional organizations, without government interference. In contrast, the EcoSoC only serves in an advisory capacity for government-requested projects. To self-refer an issue, the EcoSoC would need the support of two-thirds of the delegates.

On the other hand, the consultation of minutes of parliamentary sessions during the law’s vote institutionalizing the council, held at the end of 1994,⁶ reveals that the first draft of the government’s proposal excluded the possibility of self-referral and restricted EcoSoC role as a government advisory committee. The revision of the draft by the parliament resulted in the inclusion of the right to self-referral, but only if two-thirds of the EcoSoC general assembly voted in favour. Numerous legislators have correctly observed that two-thirds of the vote, which is only required for constitutional reforms in parliament, is a high percentage for a board comprised of volunteers. They unsuccessfully proposed reducing the required proportion to an absolute majority. Consequently, the requirement of a two-thirds majority for self-referral becomes a crippling condition. In addition, the government has sought to appoint representatives of professional organizations itself, whereas the legislature has framed its proposal to reduce government control and encourage the participation of these organizations in the nomination process. Thus, each organization submits a list containing three times the minimum number of candidates and the government selects a representative from this list. The Council’s financing consolidates this control through special appropriations in the budget of the government’s presidency, whereas in France the National Assembly approved the budget.

In Tunisia, historical labour and capital organizations (i.e., the UGTT and the UTICA) and the government signed a social pact in 2013. In 2017, the pact led to the reconfiguration of the national institution for social dialogue through the NCSD’s establishment.⁷ The NCSD supplanted the ‘National Commission for Social Dialogue’ proposed by the Labour Code (Article 335).⁸ Amouri et al. (2020, p. 30) explains that the NCSD’s prerogatives are so broad that they exceed those of the Commission. The general assembly members are nominated for a six-year term by professional organizations and appointed by government decree. By consensus, the constituent parts of the Council elect the president. Each social actor holds the general assembly’s chairmanship for a non-renewable term of two years. Moreover, the NCSD is responsible for organizing and managing social dialogue, observing the degree of compliance with social legislation, issuing an opinion on reform projects, supervising collective negotiations, presenting proposals regarding the minimum wage’s evolution, issuing an opinion on the ratification of international conventions relating to international labour standards and contributing to the development of social legislation. On economic and social issues, the Council must be consulted, and its opinion must be attached to bills submitted by the Assembly of People’s Representatives. Self-referral is unrestricted. The broad scope of the NCSD’s responsibilities reflects a desire to break with the previous excessive centralization of social dialogue on a handful of topics related solely to wage issues (Amouri et al., 2020, pp. 43–44).⁹

Discussion: Moments and reasons of change

Critical junctures are moments that make room for transformation. The path is broken, and new paths are becoming possible. Those moments of change are ‘polarizing events that produce intense political reactions and counterreactions’ (Collier & Collier, 1991, p. 37).

Lebanon went through critical political events in 2005. Following the assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri, massive mobilizations ensued. This mobilization ‘had all the makings of a critical juncture’ (Clark & Zahar, 2015, p. 2) because it shifted major political coalitions and pushed for systemic change. The consequence was the advocacy of Lebanese nationalism as an anchor of citizens’ unity and the establishment of two major political coalitions founded on intercommunal cooperation (Kota, 2012). As an additional extra-institutional measure to address policy disagreements, a national dialogue was initiated. The dialogue reached its culmination with the 2008 Doha conference. The latter resulted in the Doha agreement and the formation of the 2009 national unity government. This government’s Ministry of Social Affairs initiated the social pact. Following that, the EcoSoc reappeared with the same prerogatives for social actors. This is a situation involving a negative case in which the dominant path prior to the critical juncture remains unchanged.

In 2011, following the departure of President Ben Ali, Tunisia experienced a regime change. The UGTT assumed a pivotal national role in light of the political impasse between the majority and the opposition that ensued after the first democratic election in October 2011. The UGTT and three additional civil society organizations formed the Quartet and mediated the National Dialogue. The latter led to a roadmap for establishing a new government and voting on the constitution in 2014 (M’rad, 2015). The Quartet was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for assisting in the democratic transition of the country. As previously stated, the UGTT was also engaged in social dialogue that culminated in the 2013 signing of the social pact. This led to the establishment of the NCSD in 2017, which secured better prerogatives for social actors in the socioeconomic policy formulation process.

Therefore, it is essential to ascertain the determining factors in each case. This paper investigates organized labour’s roles in the aforementioned developments. It asserts that, in addition to the union’s pre-existing capabilities, the legacy of the political dynamic preceding a critical juncture impacts the role of organized labour afterwards. Specifically, the nature of the political elite’s intervention can either prevent or enable organized labour’s political involvement. When prior conditions permit, organized labour’s strategic choice becomes crucial.

Lebanon

The GCLW, established in 1958, incorporated the leftist faction of the labour movement into its membership in 1970. The reunification allowed the Confederation to play a crucial role in the early 1970s and strengthen job security by amending Article 50 of the labour code. Throughout the Civil War, the Confederation and the national currency became the only unified institutions.¹⁰ It mobilized the public to advocate for the cessation of war in the late 1980s (Dølerud, 2018, p. 301). For example, in 1987, the confederation organized a massive anti-war protest where people crossed the borders between fighting factions to demand peace.¹¹ However, the GCLW never established itself as a major player in the socio-economic arena. It has been excluded from the national political coalition (Madi, 2023).

Prior to the critical juncture, the political dynamic was characterized by the GCLW’s co-optation. The latter protested against the government’s neoliberal policies in the 1990s. It positioned itself as the protagonist of the anti-neoliberal order, particularly after the election of a leftist executive in 1993. By allowing sectarian-based federations, the government intended to control the GCLW (documented in detail in Bou Khater, 2022). Because the Confederation’s structure does not mandate sector-based organization, the government has exploited this void.¹² The number of federations increased from 22 in 1993 to 36 in 2001 (Bou Khater, 2022, p. 78). These non-representative federations dominated the vote within the Confederation’s executive committee, especially since the vote is not proportional to the federations’ size; all federations (whether with a small or large membership) would therefore have the same impact on decision-making. In 2002, the ruling elite successfully elected Ghassan Ghosn as the new GCLW president, a position he held until 2017.

The government interferes with essential aspects of the confederation’s internal structure. Unions are expected to adopt a model of internal regulations established by the Ministry of Labour, which exhibits a reluctance to alter. They must be pre-approved by the ministry before becoming official. Those rules violate Freedom of Association Convention 87. The ministry also prevented the 1993 confederation’s internal structure reform, which proposed proportional representation and sectoral organization, because it clashed with the Minister of Labour’s (Abdullah Al-Amin) initiative at the time (Keyrouz, 2018).

Furthermore, the political intervention through sectarianism affects local unions and the rank and file in addition to the executive co-optation. For instance, the twelve leadership members (i.e., president and members) are explicitly designated by the labour offices of sectarian political parties (Keyrouz, 2018). More importantly, Scala (2015) demonstrated how sectarianism, manifested as clientelist networks, influenced the only attempt to establish a local union in the private sector in 2012 and fragmented workers. Dozens of workers were forced to resign from the union based on a single-letter form generated by the firm. Due to those pressures, the union lost its membership, and the union council was reduced to only three people, all of whom were fired from their jobs. The co-optation of the rank-and-file resulted in most unions’ elections being held by acclamation, as sectarian political parties formed national alliances and imposed their choices on local members (Sleibi, 2023). Even when protests are on a national scale, as was the case during the 2015 garbage crisis, elites use sectarianism as ‘counter-narratives to project the protests as a threat to stability’ (Geha, 2019, p. 19). As an illustration of the influence of this interference on CGTL action, the confederation’s co-optation resulted in a paradoxical situation in 2012, when a progressive Minister of Labour from outside the sectarian political coalition requested an increase in private sector salary scales. The CGTL ultimately defended fewer progressive positions than those advocated by the Minister (Dirani et al., 2019).

The GCLW was under these conditions in 2005, when the critical juncture occurred. The Confederation was not consulted regarding the reform proposal of the Paris III international aid conference. The disagreement between the two major political coalitions formed after 2005 led to ‘poor mobilisations and GCLW’s failure to effectively stand against the Paris III economic reform agenda’ (Bou Khater, 2022, p. 92).

Considering EcoSoC’s re-emergence, the GCLW played no role. Even though it is common knowledge that some institutional weak points impeded the Council’s role, the GCLW failed to impose institutional improvements. One of the primary reasons for EcoSoC’s deactivation between 2001 and 2017 was the lack of a tacit renewal following the mandate’s expiration. In 2001, the general assembly proposed a reform of its constituent law, which stipulated the tacit renewal of its mandate until the government grants a new mandate. Moreover, since 2000, the GCLW has ‘clearly expressed disappointment with not being allowed to nominate its own representatives to the assembly’ (Bou Khater, 2022, p. 86). Improving these deficiencies was the bare minimum an effective labour confederation could achieve. However, such institutional enhancements were not considered during the EcoSoC’s revival. The new composition of EcoSoC is even more controlled by the political elites than it was prior to its reactivation.¹³

Tunisia

Founded in 1946, the UGTT participated in the struggle for the country’s liberation and lost its founder, Farhat Hached, who was assassinated for his national services (Bishara, 2020; Madi, 2023). The political regime implemented the 1954 UGTT programme for social policies and the transition of the economy to a quasi-socialist model. The UGTT obtained representation in respective governments and organizational and institutional privileges, such as the automatic deduction of union dues in 1958 and participation in tripartite agreements as a social partner since 1973. Thus, the UGTT benefited from a variety of sources of power, ensuring its legitimacy within the national framework (Madi, 2023).

Prior to the critical juncture, the political dynamic under Ben Ali was characterized by a dialectic between organized labour’s pursuit of autonomy and state intervention (Mouelhi, 2016). After a decade of conflict with Bourguiba’s regime, the UGTT was split, and the historical leadership, led by Ashour, was marginalized. Ben Ali orchestrated the reunification, which resulted in a new UGTT leadership under Ismael Sahbani in 1989. The regime reinstated the UGTT’s preferential status and incorporated it into the tripartite arrangements. Sahbani’s closeness to the president was well-known. Nevertheless, a sociologist asserts that

what must be understood, and which is fundamental, is that the middle layers of the confederation are radicalized […] which always take the logic of confrontation with the regime in place. That is general. […] it uses the confederation as a strike force. Therefore, the Confederation’s leadership is forced to take this condition into consideration. Up until now, there has been a hard left-wing core (of) school teachers and civil services. The Confederation has been imbued with a policy, a culture, that defends workers. Every leader had to bend and change to meet the demands of this political culture. You can’t change this easily. You must take into consideration this political culture, favourable to the worker. […] it didn’t depend on him. (Sahbani)¹⁴

According to Chouikha and Geisser (2010), the UGTT was the weakest link in the political regime due to the Confederation’s structural ambiguity. To quell social unrest, the executive adopted a collaborative stance with the government, but grassroots unions and local union leaders refused allegiance to the regime. For example, 17 regional and sectoral leaders of the UGTT Administrative Commission voted against the executive’s resolution of support for Ben Ali during the 2004 presidential elections.¹⁵ In 2008, during the uprising in the Gafsa mining basin, labour activists contested the corrupt hiring practices of a state-owned company and ultimately compelled the national executive to support protestors (Chouikha & Geisser, 2010). Again, with the Tunisian people’s uprising against Ben Ali, UGTT unionists with organizational expertise shaped the popular movement (Yousfi, 2017, pp. 63–68). Ultimately, the UGTT executive granted its local organizations the authority to organize regional and sectoral strikes. The regional strike in Tunis and the protest at the UGTT headquarters were significant factors in Ben Ali’s departure on January 14 evening. According to Gobe (2008, p. 279), the UGTT cannot be compared to a simple transmission belt of state power. Hibou (2006, p. 150) argues that the Confederation cannot be effectively disciplined because, on the one hand, it is rooted in the country’s socioeconomic arrangements. On the other hand, it must meet the needs of its rank-and-file. Bishara (2020, p. 188) observed that internal autonomy was secured ‘even at times when the union’s leadership had become completely dominated by the current regime’. In this dialectical relationship with the regime, the UGTT was at the centre of the 2011 public protests. With the fall of Ben Ali’s regime, the UGTT hurriedly convened a national congress and elected a new executive bureau led by Hussein Abbassi. The latter, while serving as the head of the Kairouan regional union in 2004, opposed the UGTT’s endorsement of Ben Ali’s re-election.

Having been able to revitalize itself after the critical juncture, the UGTT’s strategic choice was to re-consolidate tripartite arrangements and strengthen its position within them. It supported the elaboration of a progressive social pact that safeguards, for instance, the public sector. It shaped its substance by preventing the inclusion of exceptions to the right to strike¹⁶ and mandating the use of ‘social stability’ rather than ‘social peace’ in the prologue.¹⁷ The UGTT, by virtue of the ILO’s technical assistance,¹⁸ exchanged experiences with European countries, specifically Belgium, Norway and Denmark. Due to the shared linguistic background, it was easier to consult the structure and operation of the Belgian Council, as opposed to Nordic models.¹⁹ The social pact’s primary effect was the NCSD’s establishment in 2017, which increased social actors’ prerogatives in policymaking.

Conclusion: Understanding labour power after a critical juncture and implications for the social contract

This paper examined the evolution of social dialogue institutions in Lebanon and Tunisia and the role of influential actors in shaping the outcomes. It considered the emergence of social pacts and the reconfiguration of national institutions of social dialogue. In Lebanon, the social pact was established in 2010, and EcoSoC re-emerged in 2017 without modification. The social pact’s crafting in Tunisia in 2013 led to the NCSD’s establishment in 2017, which enhanced the privileges of social actors in socioeconomic policymaking.

My findings highlight that the UGTT was instrumental in the formation of a progressive social pact and the NCSD’s emergence. In Lebanon, the EcoSoC re-emerged, but the GCLW was unable to seize the critical moment to advocate for a greater voice in the formulation of socioeconomic policy. Political elites participated in social dialogue initiatives without a genuine desire for change.

In addition to providing new insights into the formulation of socioeconomic policy in both countries, this paper makes a theoretical contribution to the understanding of labour power and weakness following a critical juncture. This paper suggests that prior conditions matter and either enable or impede union revitalization. According to the literature on critical junctures, the latter are ‘typically moments of expanding agency, not complete contingency’ (Slater & Simmons, 2010, p. 889). I differentiate between the two legacies and their impact on organized labour’s role after the critical juncture. The two confederations have two different pre-existing capabilities, with the UGTT benefiting from better leverage in its national context. However, I shed light on the nature of the political intervention to pacify organized labour. Political elites employed a pacification strategy towards both labour unions. Lebanon’s political elites neutralized labour through sectarianism, which co-opted the national leadership and bound the rank-and-file to a sectarian-clientelist network. In Tunisia, pacification harmed national and regional executives, whereas local unionists maintained their independence. Consequently, the UGTT was able to recover and made the strategic decision to enhance participation within tripartite arrangements.

Moreover, social dialogue institutions such as the EcoSoC and the NCSD are indicators of the participation of national actors in policy formulation. The purpose of these institutions is to ensure that labour markets’ development is mutually beneficial. Nonetheless, only contracting actors of the social contract would be permitted to participate in policymaking. The evolution of the participation aspect of the social contract is illustrated by the change or lack of it in social dialogue institutions. The UGTT prominent position in the reform suggests that organized labour is incorporated into the social contract. It advocated for an enhancement of the participation aspect of the social contract after the critical juncture. It took advantage of the weakened political regime to pursue a progressive social pact. This resulted in the establishment of a new institution for social dialogue, the NCSD. Consequently, a particular aspect of the social contract, namely participation in policy development, was strengthened for organized labour and, more specifically, for the UGTT. A unionist who participated in the social pact’s drafting describes how this strategy helped the UGTT maintain its prerogatives during the 2014 constitution-drafting process:

it presented the social pact by declaring (that) we, the social partners, in fact, agreed that this is a right, and that if you want to attack it, you do not have the right to do so.²⁰

EcoSoC’s revival in Lebanon, without addressing its well-known institutional weaknesses, demonstrates that the social contract remains unchanged. Political elites were able to protect the existing social contract and get through the crucial juncture without altering the participation of organized labour in policy formulation.

Despite occurring in weakly institutionalized configurations, these transformations are significant because they affect subsequent development and trigger a chain reaction (Mahoney, 2006). The primary objective of this paper was to understand the conditions under which organized labour has influenced the process of policymaking. However, even in Tunisia, where the process of policymaking is more inclusive, certain groups continue to be excluded, such as the newly established labour confederations and informal workers (Han, 2023). This enhanced inclusion seen after 2011 did not result in significant improvements in socio-economic outcomes, hence presenting an additional hurdle for social actors. Since 2020, Lebanon’s economic collapse and Tunisia’s election of President Kais Saeid have marked the beginning of a new phase for both countries. Future research will have to prioritize the examination of the impacts stemming from those advancements in the realms of social dialogue and the social contract.

Acknowledgment

I would like to thank Tina Zintl and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on prior drafts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Mitacs Globalink [IT08718]; Interuniversity Research Centre on Globalization and Work (CRIMT).

Notes

1. Decree No. 60 L.R. of the High Commissioner of March 18, 1936.

2. Like Tunisia, Egypt witnessed the implementation of a national council of social dialogue in 2014 with Cabinet Decree No. 1027 of 2014.

3. Organized by the Ministry of Social Affairs. Actors participated in twelve consultation sessions (Interview, Common Space Member, Beirut, 18 December 2018).

4. The 2017 national unity government and other social dialogue initiatives helped to facilitate this resurgence.

5. Law No. 389 of 12 January 1995.

6. See Eighteenth Legislative Assembly, Second Regular Session, Record of Fifth Session, 20 December 1994.

7. Law No. 54 of 24 July 2017.

8. The ‘Commission’ was a Ministry of Social Affairs advisory body on which the government had the majority (Decree No. 2000–1990 of 12 September 2000).

9. Additionally, in 2019, the ‘Authority for Sustainable Development and Rights of Future Generations’ was established (Organic law No 60 of 9 July 2019) as an independent constitutional body (Article 129 of the 2014 Constitution). It replaced EcoSoC (dissolved in 2011) with more power. The Authority must be consulted on economic, social and environmental laws and development plans (Article 6). In those areas, social dialogue is now mandatory (Amouri et al., 2020, p. 28).

10. Interview, union leader, Beirut, 28 November 2018.

11. Interview, union leader, Beirut, 11 November 2018.

12. Interview, union leader, Beirut, 14 November 2018.

13. Interview, ex-unionist and social dialogue expert, Beirut, 07 December 2018.

14. Interview, Tunis, 03 November 2017.

15. Achaab, No. 1160 of Jan. 7, 2012, p. 6. Also, in 2005, the UGTT criticized the state’s ban on the Tunisian League for the Defence of Human Rights’ congress (Yousfi, 2017, pp. 50–51) and refused to participate in the election of the Chamber of Counsellors, the second chamber of Parliament, due to the regime’s interference in the selection of syndical candidates (Geisser and Gobe, 2007).

16. Interview, unionist who participated in the social pact’s elaboration, Tunis, 13 November 2017.

17. Interview, member of the UTICA delegation to the negotiation table of the social pact, Tunis, 14 December 2017.

18. See supra note 18.

19. See supra note 18.

20. See supra note 21.