The observation of the lunar crescent announcing the beginning of the month of Chaoual will thus take place on Sunday 29 Ramadan 1443 of the Hegira, corresponding to May 1, 2022. of Labor coincides almost to the day with the holiday of Eid El-Fitr, to the chagrin of the unions. Still, we will be entitled to a long weekend off.
Also this should lead to the cancellation of laborious celebrations in public spaces for this year or at least their reduction, due to the displacement of workers and employees, taking advantage of the religious occasion to visit their families. Among the solutions proposed at the union table to commemorate Labor Day is the holding of festivals “at a distance and in a digital way”, in the image of what the unions have done during the period of the pandemic, which caused the celebrations in the streets to stop. But no more.
The unions have already decided on their slogans for the festivities and they relate to soaring prices and the deterioration of the standard of living of the citizens. Labor Day this year comes in a context where the consultations on the social dialogue launched by the Head of Government, Aziz Akhannouch, with the unions have still not succeeded for the time being and although the negotiations between the government and the unions should continue in the coming days (before the commemoration of May 1) there is no real agreement in sight. An agreement, one agrees to say, concerning the minimum wage and the ceiling of the reference wages of the CNSS that some hope to be revised upwards.
The Moroccan Labor Union (UMT) unveiled its slogan on Sunday in a press release, it revolves around the high cost of living. “Stop the series of attacks on the purchasing power of the working class and the whole people“. But, for as much, the first union of Morocco recommends not to demonstrate massively and calls rather to maintain other forms of demonstrations to this day in the premises of the Centrale. The first union force in the country, the UMT, indicated in its press release, informing that its secretary general Miloudi Moukharek, will deliver a speech on May 1, 2022, from 12:00 p.m., and that these remarks will be broadcast through the official page of the UMT on social networks.
This is not the case of the CDT, the FDT and the UNTM which themselves stand out from this position by preferring the crowd. Indeed, they call on their members and supporters to participate massively in the May Day festivities, nationally, regionally and locally. On the other hand, and as regards the common denominator, all without exception tune their violins and adopt the same refrain through their demands. They claim what they consider a right to have with regard to the situation, wage increases and the arguments, particularly the high cost of living and rising prices, comfort them in this.
In this context, the General Union of Workers of Morocco (UGTM) calls for a salary increase of 10% in addition to the reduction in the tax burden for employees in both the public and private sectors. But not only. Trade union freedoms, like the other unions, need to be revived, in particular the bill providing for the right to strike. But these grievances are all in everyone’s protest notebooks. The Democratic Confederation of Labor (CDT), for its part, denounces in a letter to the Head of Government the slowness of the negotiations within the public sector commission and insists like the other trade union forces on the increase in wages.
.