State sector strike slows hospitals, govt offices

Hospitals offered only essential and emergency services and there was little activity at government offices in the Chadian capital on Monday as trade unions called a one-week strike for a pay rise. “We’ve been told to allow in only women who are bleeding or who are about to go into labour, but no consultations,” said one of the guards at the city’s main maternity clinic. Shops, government offices and banks opened as usual but there was little activity after Chad’s largest labour union, the UST, called a weeklong stoppage to demand a five percent wage rise it says had been promised last year. The strike “will be renewed if there is no dialogue with the government,” said Djibrine Assali, UST secretary-general. UST president Michel Barka noted that trade union leaders had demanded a 50 percent wage hike for workers in Chad, currently one of the world’s 12 poorest countries but due to harvest new oil revenues. “The president had asked us to wait until 2007 but had promised us a five percent increase in the interim in 2005 that never came,” Barka said. Government officials could not be reached for comment on the strike. Chad has seen a series of strikes this year over pay and conditions, with civil servants notably demanding months of unpaid salaries and retired government workers complaining of a year of unpaid pensions. The Chad government early this year freed up about 5.5 billion CFA francs (US $10.3 million) for government workers' pensions that had been unpaid for up to two years.