UNITA welcomes general strike in Angola, defending review of remuneration policy – Africa

The opposition UNITA parliamentary group welcomed the start of the general strike in the public sector this Wednesday, considering that Angola “definitely” needs to review remuneration policies.

“The country definitely needs to revisit the fundamentals of employer and worker remuneration policy in the context of the production and distribution of its national product. The current policy only protects the stability of employers and does little to protect the stability of workers’ remuneration” , considered the parliamentary group of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).

UNITA deputies promise to present a request to discuss this issue at the plenary meeting of the Angolan parliament, called for Thursday and Friday, aiming for fair and economically sustainable solutions.

The largest opposition party also announced that it will propose a vote to welcome social consultation and encourage the executive and unions to a “deep and constructive dialogue”, aiming to find fair and robust solutions to the challenges facing the economy.

Recalling that the right to strike and freedom of association are constitutional instruments of participatory democracy, in a statement on the general strike, the first phase of which began this Wednesday and runs until Friday, UNITA states that society “cannot continue to accept It doesn’t matter if some are always paid the maximum and others are always paid the minimum”.

When the State “allows and forces society” to pay the prices of the products and services it consumes based on the exchange rate and does not force it to pay workers’ salaries based on the same exchange rate, notes UNITA, “it is to protect the stability of the remuneration of financial capital at the expense of the instability of the remuneration of human capital”.

“Injustice is promoted instead of justice. The UNITA parliamentary group understands that this policy constitutes the main cause of the strike now announced for the 20th, 21st and 22nd and other subsequent phases”, reads the statement.

An increase in civil service salaries, an increase in the national minimum wage and a reduction in the Labor Income Tax (IRT) are among the demands of the unions, which opted for a general strike due to dissatisfaction with the Angolan Government’s proposals.

UNITA calls on the Angolan executive and all the country’s forces to discuss the issue “in depth”, to find an “equitable, economically viable and socially fair” solution.

Força Sindical, National Union of Workers of Angola — Confederação Sindical (UNTA-CS) and the General Central of Independent and Free Unions of Angola (CGSILA) are the three union centrals that called for the general strike.

The UNITA parliamentary group also urged the MPLA (power), the party that supports the Angolan executive, to seek a balance between the rate of remuneration of financial capital, “which it holds today as boss, and the rate of remuneration of human capital , including workers and peasants, both necessary and inseparable for the production of national wealth and the guarantee of social stability”.