Labour
Burkina Faso Unions Call for Strike
By AFP 17/3/08
Mar 17, 2008 - 8:24:06 AM

"We call on workers to strike for 48 hours, from Wednesday April 8 to midnight April 9 throughout the country," said Tole Sagnon, secretary general of the main union, the General Confederation of Labour in Burkina (CGT-B).

The declaration signed by the leaders of six unions and some 15 independent organisations was read by Sagnon following a peaceful demonstration in Ouagadougou over high prices, corruption and fraud in one of the world's poorest countries.

Similar marches, conducted with the permission of authorities, were held in some six cities around the nation drawing tens of thousands of people to the streets, local residents told AFP.

"I'm demonstrating because the cost of living is too high. We do not want to attack the government... but everything is too expensive today.. people do not even have enough to eat," said Passeba Moyemga, a shoe salesman, who joined the protest march in the capital.

The protesters also called attention to the 45 people, including an opposition politician, who were jailed this week for between one and three years for protests over the cost of living.

The high court in Ouagadougou considered Thibault Nana, leader of the small opposition Democratic and Popular Rally (RDP) party, to be the ringleader of demonstrations on February 28 that led to vandalism in the capital, the state prosecutor said on Wednesday.

Among the unions' demands is a 25 percent increase in salaries and pensions for workers in both the public and private sectors, Sagnon said.

The unions are also calling for price controls on essential goods such as rice, corn, oil, sugar, salt and milk.

Landlocked Burkina Faso ranks next to last among the world's countries in a United Nations development index because of the effects of the rising price of oil as well as grains due to a shortfall in its agricultural production.