Unions gearing up for EAC demo on Thursday

An electricity authority (EAC) trade union which initially said it would abstain from the scheduled strike on Thursday, said it would demonstrate outside parliament.

The independent union of technical and labour staff (Astepaik) had said on Monday it refused to participate in strike actions with unclear purpose.

Nonetheless, a day later, a union announcement said it would join Isotita union and hold a demonstration outside parliament.

It called on all EAC employees to join the demonstration on Thursday at 3:30pm.

The reasons it cited was that there was absolutely no progress on restoring the wages to the level they would have been had incremental raises scrapped five years ago not taken place.

Additionally, it calls for a full restoration of automatic price indexation.

Four EAC unions announced they will hold a 12-hour strike on Wednesday from 7am to 7pm. A core union demand is the opening up of 370 job positions, including mechanics and network specialists. The finance ministry’s budget, however, greenlighted only 145 positions.

Renewable energy sources are also a source of contention, as unions demand that any interference by other state services should be scrapped so EAC can diversify its energy offerings and reduce the cost of production.