20 October 2022; MEMO: The Tunisian General Labour Union yesterday threatened a regional transport sector strike for three days, the date of which will be set later.
According to a statement by the union, the administrative body for the transport sector will meet on 21 October and it may decide to implement a sectoral strike.
Vigils are due to be held every day next week. Members of the main trade unions of the transport sector expressed their strong condemnation of what they considered "the catastrophic situation in the sector's institutions," and their discontent with the "indifference of the supervisory authority to the continuous deterioration of the latter," according to the text of the statement.
There was no comment from the government on these threats.
About 3,200 bakeries suspended work as part of an open strike in Tunisia, to demand the government pay the amount owed for the year 2021 in exchange for preparing bread, according to the Bakery Owners Syndicate.
The National Chamber of Bakery Owners demanded "payment of 14 months' dues in exchange for subsidizing the bread industry," according to press statements by an official in the union.
Chamber head Mohamed Bouanane told the media, "We reached an agreement with the government to suspend the strike after it gave us four months' dues, equivalent to 75 million dinars ($23 million)."
The union confirmed earlier that 95 per cent of the bakeries that benefited from bread subsidies from the government closed their doors yesterday.
