TUNIS: Flights have been cancelled, public delivery floor to a halt and executive workplaces have been closed in a national strike by means of Tunisia’s major industry union confederation Thursday, that piled force on a president already going through a string of crises. The robust UGTT confederation had known as on as much as 3 million public sector employees to strike, halting paintings at 159 state businesses and public corporations to call for concessions on salaries and threatened reforms.
The motion gave the look to be extensively noticed. A strike by means of public sector employees at Tunis airport noticed dozens of flights cancelled, whilst public utilities and submit workplaces have been closed. Round 1,000 strike supporters accrued out of doors UGTT headquarters in central Tunis, making a song the nationwide anthem and waving flags. In a fiery speech, UGTT leader Noureddine Taboubi mentioned the motion were over 96 % a hit, and blamed the federal government for the cave in of wage negotiations.
“This can be a cussed executive which sows discord and spreads false data,” Taboubi instructed the demonstrators. “We gained’t prevent campaigning, regardless of the price, till our calls for are met.” The strike comes as Tunisia prepares to go into formal talks with the Global Financial Fund on a brand new bailout plan for its debt-laden economic system.
Tunisians are going through hovering inflation, which hit 7.8 % in Would possibly, and the UGTT has demanded a brand new deal to boost public sector salaries, together with retroactively for ultimate yr. Whilst its combatants say the UGTT is ignoring the rustic’s deep monetary woes, the IMF has made a bailout deal conditional at the industry unions’ enhance. The federal government has offered a reform plan to the worldwide lender which incorporates a freeze at the public sector salary invoice, modern cuts to a couple subsidies and a restructuring of publicly owned corporations.
However the UGTT has warned in opposition to “painful reforms” geared toward pleasant the IMF. “We’re now not hard a pay upward push, however a reset to employees’ buying energy to take inflation under consideration,” in addition to the scrapping of a one-percent social safety tax presented in 2018, Taboubi mentioned. The union has additionally demanded promises that state sector corporations, together with some monopolies and flag provider Tunisair, stay publicly owned.
Tunisian economist Fadhel Kaboub mentioned the strike used to be “the end result of a collective failure by means of greater than 10 Tunisian governments, the UGTT, the IMF and Tunisia’s world companions” to restructure the economic system. “It’ll function a reminder to the IMF that operating other folks in Tunisia can best maintain such a lot financial ache.” Whilst the UGTT insists the strike isn’t political, it comes as President Kais Saied faces intense complaint for with the exception of opposition forces from his “nationwide discussion” – a part of a push to overtake the Tunisian state and consolidate an ongoing energy grasp.
The president sacked the federal government and suspended an elected parliament in July ultimate yr, prior to dissolving the legislature in March and sacking ratings of judges by means of decree previous this month. The UGTT used to be invited to participate within the nationwide discussion, however refused at the grounds that key political forces weren’t, and that the method aimed to push thru “conclusions determined unilaterally prematurely”. “We don’t consider this discussion can assist Tunisia get to the bottom of its crises,” Taboubi mentioned.
The UGTT, a co-laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts in a prior nationwide discussion following Tunisia’s 2011 revolution, had firstly subsidized Saied when he sacked the federal government and suspended parliament. However it has turn into increasingly more crucial as Saied has prolonged his energy grasp, which a few of his opponents describe as a coup in the one democracy to emerge from the Arab uprisings of 2011.
Kaboub, who teaches at Denison College in the USA, mentioned a decade of democratization had didn’t ship key financial reforms equivalent to boosting meals and effort sovereignty and making an investment in prime value-added industries. “It’s time for the IMF, the Tunisian executive and the UGTT to formulate an alternate imaginative and prescient for financial building in Tunisia,” he mentioned. – AFP