The statistics of the social situation in Tunisia for the first 2014 quarter, released by the Ministry of Social Affairs, are gathered by the Directorate General of the Labor and Conciliation Inspectorate. They are about private and industrial and commercial public companies. The results show that the number of strikes - and their duration - has gone up. The strikers were primarily demanding better working conditions (44 percent), the payment of wages (36 percent), better industrial relations (12 percent) and solidarity with agents on strike (8 percent). However, what mostly comes out is the important share of unlawful strikes, which show that social dialogue is getting worse. However, labor market stakeholders are still confident regarding the possibility of cooling off in the medium run.
More, longer strikes. According to the Labor Inspectorate’s services, there have been 269 strikes in the first 2014 quarter. All sectors included, 175 businesses were affected – 148 private, 27 public. This is a 9-percent increase from 2013, 4 percent from 2012. For 2014, what’s really new is the duration of the strikes: the number of days lost went up 32 percent from 2013 and 80 percent from 2012.
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