By Oulfa al-Gharbi
HAMMAMET, Tunisia (AA) – Tunisia’s largest labor union has announced a two-day general strike for public-sector employees on Feb. 20.
“The general strike is a necessity,” Noureddine Taboubi, the head of the Tunisian General Labor Union (TGLU), said in statements after a union meeting in the eastern city of Hammamet on Saturday.
He said the strike comes “after dialogue and negotiations with the government regarding a pay raise for public-sector employees were deadlocked”.
On Thursday, thousands of Tunisian civil servants stayed home as part of a general strike called by TGLU to demand higher wages.
Last November, the union organized a similar strike to demand higher wages for members of Tunisia’s roughly 650,000-strong public workforce.
That strike, however, failed to persuade the government to meet longstanding demands for higher public-sector salaries.
Since Tunisia’s popular uprising in 2011, the country has weathered at least three general strikes to protest deteriorating economic conditions.
Tunisia was the birthplace of the “Arab Spring ” uprisings that swept the Middle East and North Africa in early 2011.
Tunisia’s popular uprising forced its authoritarian ruler, Zein Al Abidine Ben Ali, to step down — and eventually leave the country — after almost 25 years in power.
