Burkina Faso Labor Union Threatens Protests Over Prices, Wages
May 01, 2011, 11:47 AM EDTBy Simon Gongo
May 1 (Bloomberg) -- The Burkina Faso Workers Union called for a 30 percent increase in wages and a reduction prices of basic goods, threatening to begin demonstrations unless the government meets its demands.
“We want an increase in wages and a decrease in the price of basic goods, which have become very expensive in our country,” Mamadou Nama, general secretary of the labor union, said in an e-mailed statement today in Ouagadougou, the capital. Protests may begin “in the coming days”, he said.
The government will consider workers’ grievances and work to find a solution, Civil Service, Work and Social Welfare Minister Soungalo Appolinaire Ouattara told reporters today after receiving a list of complaints from the union.
About 3,000 people demonstrated in Ouagadougou yesterday against the rising cost of living and to call for President Blaise Compaore to resign. The West African country has been wracked by political instability since February, amid protests over the death of a student in police custody, and a presidential guard mutiny that led Compaore to dismiss his government last month.
Prices rose in Burkina Faso after a four-month political crisis in neighboring Ivory Coast interrupted the flow of imports. Annual inflation was 1.2 percent in January after prices fell 0.3 percent in December, according to the latest data on the website of the eight-member West African Monetary Union.
--Editors: Paul Richardson, Todd White
To contact the reporter on this story: Simon Gongo in Ouagadougou via Nairobi at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at asguazzin@bloomberg.net.
