End of the AGOA: a genuine social unease and a fake economic crisis?

07:00 a.m., factory workers are joining their workplace. It quickly comes up to a mob. The gates are closed. Why? A simple poster on the gate is specifying technical layoff to workers. The announcement is as so sudden as brutal. “Nobody warned us of such layoff”, complains the workers’ delegate. “Nobody can contact the direction”. It is not the first ever of such scenes in front of textile oriented factory’s gates. “One noticed responsibles removing some hardware those latest days, but we did not expect this. Would they have decided to flee?”, testified an employee.  

The industrial zones of Antananarivo city and its surroundings have welcomed an exceptional crowd. Workers who freshly lost their jobs are merging with workers in search of a job. “In the factory next door, they are allegedly recruiting, but we don’t know how are they selecting those they are hiring; on this account, we’d rather stay here, trying to recover our rights”, moaned Harisoa, a young 27 years old mother. The tax free zones’ plague is not restricting to corporations concerned by the American market. “I don’t understand yet why did we close doors”, wondered Mahefa, 31 years old, supervisor and newly out of job. “No doubt that we underwent plummeting orders, but nothing like a cataclysm; we’d been worse before”.  

From the 45 000 workers threatened by layoff following the loss of the AGOA related privileges, some 10 000 have already had a taste of the verdict: technical layoff. Trade unions are protesting. According to the FISEMARE, some enterprises might be attempted to leave the country, while leaving Malagasy workers on the pavement, even without paying back their allowances and various other rights.  “Some tax free zones are making it an excuse to shut doors although the genuine reasons have nothing to do with the AGOA, for example a poor financial management to keep unveiled”, explained one unionist. “These societies must pay back their workers’ rights, the 6 months long technical unemployment would be only a lure “, he added.  

The association of tax free corporations and partners or GEFP remains however optimistic: “most of the lost jobs related to the AGOA issue can still be saved by tackling the European market “. The association’s president got his mandate extended until June in order to face up to the crisis.  “We are trying to find a technical strategy in order to lower the consequence of the AGOA issue over corporations, we are trying to address the state’s social partners”.  

“The genuine solution is, as the problem, political, but we don’t have any say in it”, explained Jacky Radavidra. He argued that technical unemployment is not unprecedented during this period of the year, specifying that the enterprises members of the GEFP are in no way denying any of their workers’ rights. “We can expect a recovery of the AGOA market when the conditions will be fulfilled again”, he concluded.  Until then, a substantial number of enterprises tired by political uncertainties in the country are on the verge of leaving Madagascar. Investors from Mauritius are among the most deeply affected