18 October, 2010
The ICEM was saddened to hear of the death on 10 September of Mahjoub Ben Seddik, the Secretary-General of the Union Marocaine du Travail (UMT), who died in Paris at the age of 88. He was buried in the “cimitiere des chouhadas,” the martyrs cemetery in Casablanca, Morocco.
In attendance at the funeral were the entire political class of Morocco, encompassing leaders of political parties, past and present government ministers, trade union centres, as well as numerous Moroccan intellectuals and wider civil society. All had gathered to pay homage to a great trade union leader who had been of massive importance in the trade union world, and the Moroccan struggle for independence.
Mahjoub Ben Seddik, the late Secretary-General of the Union Marocaine du Travail (UMT)
In a message of condolences, Manfred Warda, ICEM General Secretary, echoed the words of UMT national official, Milourdi Moukharik, in stating: “Moroccan workers, their trade union movement, as well as the Arab trade union world, and indeed the international trade union movement, have lost a great leader and fighter for trade union independence and struggle.
“He founded and continued to lead a vibrant and independent trade union structure firmly grounded in the workplace. The ICEM and the whole international trade union movement have lost a good friend and colleague. His passing really seems to be the end of an era.”
Mahjoub Ben Seddik spent his entire life defending the interests of the Moroccan workers. He never deviated from his conviction that the trade union movement should be independent of political parties, but at the same time was immensely political. He played a major role in the struggle for Moroccan independence and was imprisoned for two years in 1952 and again in 1954 before independence was achieved in 1956.
He remained an active leader of UMT until his death and was a key supporter of wider international trade union, and the work of the ICEM in particular. UMT has been an active ICEM member for many years and has played an important role in the Global Union Federation’s recent increased activities throughout the Middle East/North Africa Region (MENA), with Abdesalam Mansour being the MENA member of the ICEM Executive Committee.