The powerful UGTT trade union is denouncing the campaign being waged against it

The powerful UGTT trade union is denouncing the “demonization and smear campaign” being waged against it. “It said that the campaign was a reaction to the ‘independent positions’ taken by the union and had intensified after the union took a stance against the privatization of public institutions, criticized the government's performance and called for ‘pumping new blood’ into state institutions.” Prime Minister Youssef Chahed met in early March with UGTT head Noureddine Taboubi after Taboubi criticised the government's performance in particular when it came to the privatization of public sector institutions. [BBC Monitoring in Arabic, 17 March and 6 March 2018]