731122E DOCTORS REITERATE STRIKE THREAT
Maputo, 22 Nov (AIM) – Despite their negotiations with the government, Mozambican doctors have warned that they are not satisfied with the outcome and have reiterated their threat to take strike action as from 5 December.
A statement issued on Monday night by the Medical Association of Mozambique (AMM) said that, not only are the doctors dissatisfied with the government’s reaction to their demands, but they are also experiencing “pressure and threats” from human resource officials in the Health Ministry and in the various health units.
At the heart of the dispute is the new Unified Wage Table (TSU) for the public sector. Although the government has repeatedly insisted that no public servant will suffer a decline in take-home pay as a result of the new table, the doctors, and various other professional categories, have protested at the way in which bonuses and allowances have been consolidated into the new wage structure.
According to a report in Tuesday’s issue of the independent newssheet “Mediafax”, the AMM believes the alleged threats its members have suffered are intended to prevent them from receiving their November wages: if they do not accept their position on the TSU, the November wages will be withheld.
The note from the AMM Management Council said that, after rescheduling the strike for 5 December, it sent letters to government representatives, on 7 and 15 November, expressing its willingness to continue dialogue, and asking for a response to the AMM demands.
“Unfortunately, there has been no response to these letters”, the AMM said, “and there is no formal information about whether the doctors’ concerns have been accepted”.
Despite some signs of progress in the negotiations, the assumptions underlying the call for a strike remained unchanged, warned the AMM.
Other groups have also protested against the TSU. At a Monday press conference in Maputo the Deputy Minister of Public Administration, Inocencio Impissa, said the commission set up to check the complaints and concerns of state employees has received 91 specific points that require answers.
He admitted that some careers had been completely omitted from the new wage table. Some management positions have also been left out, which Impissa said is because two of the 21 levels in the TSU are not open for occupation in this phase.
“There are many situations of an individual nature”, he said, “and the commission has not been deciding on these issues, particularly when hey have to be solved at provincial level”.
Impissa did, however, claim that all the allowances for public officials such as doctors, teachers and judges, have been restored, and that 98 per cent of public administration staff (about 400,000 people) have been “definitively placed”.
A complete overhaul of a wages structure that grew up over decades has proved more difficult than the government initially imagined. Initial expectations were that the TSU would lead to a general increase in wages in the public administration – which is clearly not going to happen, even if the government is right that nobody will suffer a cut in their wages.
(AIM)
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