Regional Workshop for Oil and Gas Workers in the MENA region

IndustriALL Global Union and FES Lebanon invited for the fourth time affiliates working in the field of oil and gas exploration from the Middle East and North Africa to meet in Beirut, Lebanon, in order to strengthen their networks, exchange news and views and coordinate their campaigns. They were joined by comrades from IndustriAll, Norway and Germany.

Using global framework agreements to defend workers' rights the union network discussed several issues at hand and had also the chance to raise topics of concern to representatives from multinational energy companies Total and ENI which attended the meeting and pledged to address workers' concerns.

Since this was already the fourth meeting of its kind the participants spend also some time on updating each other on events since the last meeting. The FES office Beirut organizes these regional events together with our partners from IndustriALL in order to enable workers in the sector to share their experiences and expertise with the view to develop strategies for a better future. This time participants from Iraq, Palestine, Jordan, Yemen, Egypt, Algeria, Bahrain, Morocco, Tunisia and, of course, Lebanon took part in the meeting turning it into a strong statement regional commitment.