Union leader says strike will continue

Trade union leader, Leonard Hikaumba, of the Civil Servants Union of Zambia says that a strike by thousands of civil servants will continue until their demand for a 100 percent pay increase is met, BBC reported on Wednesday. According to the BBC the Zambian government has offered striking workers an increase of about 35 percent. Hikaumba was quoted as saying that an estimated 90 percent of the country’s 90,000 public sector workers had joined the strike. Zambian news reports said that the work of several ministries had been affected. Hikaumba added that his union would disrupt the summit meeting of the Organisation of African Unity, which is scheduled to be held in Lusaka in July, if their demands were not met.