Tunisia: Teachers launch indefinite strike opposing austerity policies
25 April 2018: Members of the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT) and the General Federation of Secondary Education (FGESEC) stopped work at all high schools and colleges of Tunisia and began an indefinite strike on 17 April 2018.
Teachers are demanding higher wages and a retirement age of 55 based on 30 years of work since December 2017.
Earlier, this year thousands of teachers protested in front of the Ministry of Education demanding that the current process of disintegration of public schools be reversed through in-depth reforms and greater human and financial resources. Teachers refused to submit the exam grades to the administration in January and held a massive protest in February.
The government refused to engage in dialogue with the workers which has led to the work stoppage and indefinite strike.
Zimbabwe: 16000 nurses dismissed for demanding better wages
18 April 218: 16,000 nurses participating in strikes under the banner of Zimbabwe Nurses Association, demanding immediate payment of due allowances & arrears and restructuring of the graded salary system have been dismissed by the government.
In 2010, nurses in Zimbabwe were promised new allowance schemes and review of the graded salary system. Governments till date have failed to take cognizance of the matter. A majority of nurses have been placed in lower grades and no review of their employment status has been carried out in the past years to contain their wages. An average nurse in Zimbabwe makes $284 a month.
The nurses strike was preceded a month-long walkout over pay and working conditions by junior doctors which ended on 2 April 2018.
Germany: Public sector workers win pay hike
17 April 2018: The public sectors workers have won a phased agreement to boost the pay of more 2 million public sector workers by some 7.5 percent over two-and-a-half years.
The agreement gives workers a 3.19 percent raise backdated to March 1, followed by a 3.09 percent increase from 1 April 2019, and a further 1.06 percent from 1 March 2020.
The deal covers about 2.3 million public sector workers. The interior ministry has said that it will introduce a law to extend it to civil servants, judges and soldiers too.
UK: Delivery workers engaged in ‘gig economy’ demand worker rights
1 April 2018: 8 workers employed by delivery company Hermes have raised a dispute against the company demanding minimum wages and health benefits at entitled to other workers under the law.
The Hermes claim mirrors several other similar tribunal hearings – including verdicts in cases brought against Uber, Addison Lee, City Sprint, Excel and eCourier – where judges have ruled that workers of the gig economy were not ‘self-employed’ as claimed by the company but, workmen as per the legal classification of “workers”, thereby entitled to receiving minimum wage, leave wages and social security benefits.
UK based delivery firm DPD had offered its workers sick and holiday pay as part of wholesale reforms after death of a driver it charged for attending a medical appointment to treat his diabetes collapsed and died earlier this year led to protests by workers at the company.
