TUNIS: Tunisia’s powerful labor union warned on Wednesday public sector workers could strike to oppose economic reforms the government has proposed to try to secure an International Monetary Fund (IMF) rescue package.
The UGTT union is Tunisia’s most powerful political body with more than a million members and has brought the economy to a halt in previous strikes over state spending cuts.
“In UGTT we defend the poor and the marginalized .... We will not betray our principles, whatever the price,” said UGTT head Noureddine Taboubi, addressing workers in the northern port city of Bizerte.
A general strike would represent the most significant challenge to President Kais Saied yet, amid growing opposition to his march toward one-man rule since he suspended parliament last summer and assumed executive authority.
Taboubi said two of the union’s subordinate bodies, the public sector and public services departments, had approved the principle of a strike and the UGTT’s top national body would meet soon to decide on it.
Tunisia faces a rapidly looming crisis in public finances as it struggles to meet budget and debt commitments, and is in talks with the IMF for a rescue package.
However, the IMF wants the government to agree to cuts in spending on subsidies, on the public wage bill and on state-owned companies, and donors have said such reforms will only be possible if they are accepted by the union.
The UGTT says the government has proposed freezing wages, privatising state companies and eliminating subsidies in the coming years and that all of those are unacceptable.
It has demanded a dialogue on both political and economic reforms with Saied, whose attempts to restructure Tunisia’s political system with a new constitution are complicated by the government’s fiscal problems.
“We know they want to sell companies like the Tobacco Company and Tunisair,” Taboubi said.
Taboubi was reelected UGTT head this month and has since taken a more assertive stance in demanding Saied heed its views on protecting Tunisia’s democratic gains after the 2011 revolution and averting cuts that would hurt its members.
Tunisian union warns of public sector strike over reforms
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Tunisian union warns of public sector strike over reforms
Lebanon to delay May elections due to conflict with Israel, officials say
- The sources said Lebanon’s president, prime minister and parliament speaker had agreed on the move on Tuesday
- It would still require the approval of a majority of Lebanon’s 128-member legislature
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s leaders have agreed on a plan to postpone parliamentary elections scheduled for May and to extend parliament’s term by two years after the resumption of conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah this week and growing war in the Middle East, two senior Lebanese officials said.
The sources said Lebanon’s president, prime minister and parliament speaker had agreed on the move on Tuesday. It would still require the approval of a majority of Lebanon’s 128-member legislature.
Lebanon, which last held parliamentary polls in 2022, has been pulled into the war in the Middle East, with Hezbollah on Tuesday launching missiles at Israel for a second consecutive day and Israel sending troops into the south and carrying out waves of airstrikes.
The theater for numerous conflicts between Israel and Hezbollah, Lebanon was drawn into the spillover from the war between the United States, Israel and Iran on Monday, when Hezbollah opened fire with drones and missiles.
With dozens of people killed in retaliatory Israeli strikes, Hezbollah’s move to enter the conflict has sharpened long-standing divisions in Lebanon over its status as an armed group — the only Lebanese faction to keep its weapons after the 1975-90 civil war.
“It does not appear that conditions will be conducive to holding elections for some time,” one of the officials said.
