Tunisia’s Labor Union Calls for Strike over Wage Hike

Hundreds of thousands of civil servants took to the streets of Tunisia Thursday to demand a wage hike. (Reuters)
Hundreds of thousands of civil servants took to the streets of Tunisia Thursday to demand a wage hike. (Reuters)
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Tunisia’s Labor Union Calls for Strike over Wage Hike

Hundreds of thousands of civil servants took to the streets of Tunisia Thursday to demand a wage hike. (Reuters)
Hundreds of thousands of civil servants took to the streets of Tunisia Thursday to demand a wage hike. (Reuters)

The Tunisian General Labor Union (UGTT) called on Saturday for a national strike in January to demand a wage hike.

The call was made two days after some 650,000 public sector workers went on strike and thousands joined protests across Tunisia over the government’s refusal to raise wages.

Prime Minister Youssef Chahed said earlier on Saturday that any agreement must take into account the public finances.

"There is a real problem in the decline in purchasing power and high inflation and the decline of public services. These will be our priorities in the next period," Chahed told parliament.

The government had said it does not have the money to pay for the increases strikers want, worth about 2 billion Tunisian dinars ($690 million) in total.

Under pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and a deepening political crisis, Chahed is battling to cut the budget deficit to about 4.9 percent of GDP this year and 3.9 percent in 2019 from 6.2 percent last year.

His unpopular reforms include cuts to the public sector, state companies and fuel subsidies.

Raising the pressure on the government the UGTT Union called for a nationwide strike that includes public employees and state companies on January 17.

The union is demanding 673,000 state employees receive salary bumps equal to those granted this year to public companies, which range from 15 to 30 euros ($17-34) a month.

Civil servants represent a sixth of Tunisia's workforce and Thursday's strike, the widest of its kind since 2013, marked their first walkout over wages in decades, according to the UGTT.

Donors keeping Tunisia afloat have called on the government to control civil service salaries to avoid pushing up the public deficit.

The North African country is seen as having had a relatively smooth democratic transition since the January 14, 2011 toppling of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali after 23 years in power.

At the same time price hikes, fueled in particular by the fall of the Tunisian dinar, combined with tax increases and stubborn unemployment have spurred social discontent that escalated into riots across several cities in January.

In 2016, the IMF granted the North African country a 2.4-billion-euro loan over the span of four years in exchange for a promise to carry out economic reforms.

In recent months, political life in Tunisia has been paralyzed by power struggles ahead of presidential elections set for 2019.



Israel Orders Evacuation of Area Designated as Humanitarian Zone in Gaza

 A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
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Israel Orders Evacuation of Area Designated as Humanitarian Zone in Gaza

 A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)

Israel’s military ordered the evacuation Saturday of a crowded part of Gaza designated as a humanitarian zone, saying it is planning an operation against Hamas militants in Khan Younis, including parts of Muwasi, a makeshift tent camp where thousands are seeking refuge.

The order comes in response to rocket fire that Israel says originates from the area. It's the second evacuation issued in a week in an area designated for Palestinians fleeing other parts of Gaza. Many Palestinians have been uprooted multiple times in search of safety during Israel's punishing air and ground campaign.

On Monday, after the evacuation order, multiple Israeli airstrikes hit around Khan Younis, killing at least 70 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, citing figures from Nasser Hospital.

The area is part of a 60-square-kilometer (roughly 20-square-mile) “humanitarian zone” to which Israel has been telling Palestinians to flee to throughout the war. Much of the area is blanketed with tent camps that lack sanitation and medical facilities and have limited access to aid, United Nations and humanitarian groups say. About 1.8 million Palestinians are sheltering there, according to Israel's estimates. That's more than half Gaza’s pre-war population of 2.3 million.

The war in Gaza has killed more than 39,100 Palestinians, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The UN estimated in February that some 17,000 children in the territory are now unaccompanied, and the number is likely to have grown since.

The war began with an assault by Hamas fighters on southern Israel on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages. About 115 are still in Gaza, about a third of them believed to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.