Less than seven days before the start of the general strike in the public sector, scheduled for the 20th, the Ministry of Public Administration, Labor and Social Security and the Trade Union Centrals meet again today to analyze the state of play regarding negotiations of the Claim Book
The meeting, which will be chaired by Minister Teresa Rodrigues Dias, will serve to address the recommendations issued from the First Ordinary Meeting of the National Council for Social Concertation, held in 2024. According to a press release, to which OPAÍS had access, the parties involved in this negotiation, which has already lasted several days, will also reanalyze and reevaluate the requirements of the aforementioned booklet, among other matters.
The national director of Labor, António Estote, recently told the newspaper OPAÍS, that the Executive is in favor of an increase in the national minimum wage in line with job stability, a reduction in informality and an increase in productivity in line with economic growth. According to António Estote, from the point of view of economic stability, the minimum wage demanded by trade unions, in the order of 245 thousand kwanzas, is not sustainable, taking into account the current financial situation of families, companies and the Angolan State.
According to the official, both the Executive and the trade unions agree that there has been a loss of workers’ purchasing power resulting from the increase in general price levels. But, he explained, to increase the level of the minimum wage, a balance must be guaranteed between salary increases, employment, informality, public finances, the sustainability of mandatory social protection, and the maintenance of economic activities.
“And an increase in the minimum wage of around 245 thousand kwanzas means, indirectly, that some companies will be forced to close their doors or send a significant part of their workforce to unemployment,” he warned. It should be noted that the trade union organizations that make up UNTA-Confederação Sindical, CG SILA and Força Sindical have already declared that they will join the general strike, which will take place in an interpolated manner and in three different phases.
The first, which will be interpolated, will take place from the 20th to the 22nd of this month, across the country. Speaking to the newspaper OPAÍS, the secretary of the National Union of Nurses of Angola (SINDEA), Cruz Matete, stated that more than 32,700 nurses, who are posted to the country’s various health units, are mobilized to join the strike.
The union leader guaranteed that all professionals who work on a shift basis in the emergency room will work without obstacles. “Non-emergency services such as operating rooms, where elective surgeries are performed, among others, at national level, will not operate during the strike period”, he stressed. Cruz Matete stated that all its members are informed, this is because, in the first phase, the assemblies were held by province, which began on the 24th of February and the one in Luanda, which took place on Saturday, the 9th, was the last.
The same guarantee was given by the National Union of Justice and Administrative Technicians of the Attorney General’s Office (PGR). The general secretary, Elias Pinto, and the spokesperson, João Neto, of the aforementioned union, were recently in Cabinda, at the invitation of UNTA – Confederação Sindical, for a working meeting of proximity and observation with the union’s members location of justice and administrative technicians.
According to the secretary general, Elias Pinto, some structural situations are at stake that transcend a single institution. “We have more than 2 thousand members across the country and many of these situations that the unions present, fortunately, are the same ones that we have been debating for more than ten years with our employer.”