Given the failure of Mohamed El Ghazi — the Minister of Labour, Employment and Social Security, and one of the government’s more the incompetent ministers — to pay attention to last week’s strike against the government’s proposal to remove the right of early retirement, this week’s two-day strike action intensifies far quicker than the first one.
Press tracking reports put the strike turnout — across the autonomous 16 unions, known as the ‘Inter’, that cover most of the public sector — as ranging between 35% and 85%. The Inter claimed that the overall figure was around 75% compared to last week’s 70%. We are unaware of the government giving any figure at all.
Mohamed El Ghazi’s refusal to discuss the issue with the trade unions — plus his statements that accused the unions of ‘dishonest manoeuvres’ and that he had ruled out the possibility of the government cancelling its decision on early retirement — has merely incensed the unions. They have therefore stated that they are now planning to start an ‘unlimited strike’ in November, pending the outcome of a meeting of the trade unions on 29 October which is intended to discuss ‘more radical’ action.
However, as we explain below, the government may be responding. It obviously fears that as the strike action intensifies, the movement is gaining more momentum, turning angrier, and looks like spreading into more industrial sectors. El Ghazi’s days as a minister may therefore be numbered. As we reported (Algeria Politics & Security – 16.09.16), El Ghazi is strongly believed to have been supporting Gaïd Salah’s ‘Annaba clan’ and is therefore likely to be seen by the presidency as treacherous.
An indefinite strike would certainly trigger widespread social unrest and instability. The second strike, unlike the first, showed signs of social unrest and of spreading to the industrial sector. It is also showing signs of widening to capture the anxieties over the austerity budget for next year, which is something that the government fears.
This article is taken from our Algeria Politics & Security publication.
