Government workers go on five-day strike

A five-day strike launched on Monday by public sector workers in Sao Tome e Principe to press for an increase in the minimum wage from 40,000 to 350,000 dobras has had limited success, a humanitarian source in the archipelago told IRIN on Tuesday. [The dobra exchanges at about 7,500 to the US dollar] Workers in sectors such as the Water and Electricity Company, Postal services, and the Telecommunications Company turned out to work, the source said. While the Intersindical, the trade union negotiating body, said 80 percent of workers had gone on strike, the government put the percentage at 30. The government has been proposing a minimum wage of 120,000 dobras. On Sunday, Prime Minister Guilhermo Posser da Costa said on television that his government had made two proposals to the workers. It proposed the creation of a technical commission comprising representatives of the Finance Ministry and the trade unions to monitor the acquisition of income by the government and adjusting salaries on the basis of it. The second would be to take the entire wage bill of 1,350 million dobras on the basis of an increase to 120,000 dobra and work out a new redistribution in which people higher up the salary scale would receive smaller increases so as to beef up the minimum wage.