Chamber of advisor passes Labor Law
Morocco, Politics, 6/24/2003

The chamber of advisors (upper parliamentary chamber) unanimously adopted this Monday the labor law, regulating relations between employers and employees.

The law still needs to go through the House of Representatives.

Moroccan minister of labor, social affairs and solidarity, Mustapha Mansouri, explained that the draft labor law is designed to be a strong signal to foreign investors, as part of ongoing efforts to pass major legal texts such as the trade law, the creation of trade courts and the investments law.

Mansouri told MAP, the draft law, adopted last week by the justice, legislation, and human rights committee at the chamber of advisors (upper parliamentary chamber) comes to crown "a package of legal reforms meant to upgrade the Moroccan economy and generate jobs by stimulating national and foreign investments." He stressed that the draft law, designed after intensive dialogue between the prime minister and social actors (trade unions and enterprise associations), is considered as a breakthrough to which several ministerial departments contributed.

The law drafting process started in the 70's and since then several provisions were referred to the parliament in 1993, but it was suddenly suspended and the text was withdrawn from the parliament, he went on, before being tabled again at the chamber of advisors but social partners failed to reach understanding, which resulted once again in a three-year freezing.

Mansouri explained that concerning major bones of contention -labor flexibility, the employer's rights to fire employees and trade union freedoms- were settled by adopting principles in force in developed countries. He argued that debates have helped reach a balanced text that enjoys the adherence of all sides while it was also agreed to start dialogue on a set of other issues, mainly retirement, increasing the minimum salary by 10%, compensation on job loss and increasing salaries that were not raised in the last years.

He announced that the draft labor law will be one of the most important texts to be adopted in the present parliamentary session and will bring a strong contribution to upgrading economy and attracting investments.

He urged enterprises and trade unions to become full partners as challenges faced by Morocco are no longer domestic ones but foreign ones, resulting from liberalization and market opening.

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