Tunisian union calls national strike, rejects president's dialogue

With more than a million members, the UGTT is Tunisia's most powerful political force and its call for a strike may present the biggest challenge yet to President Kais Saied after his seizure of broad powers and moves to one-man rule, Reuters reported.

Saied has focused on his political agenda since last summer when he brushed aside the parliament and discounted most of Tunisia's democratic constitution to say he would rule by decree despite a gathering economic crisis.

The president's opponents accuse him of a coup that has undermined the democratic gains of the 2011 revolution that triggered the Arab Spring, but he says his moves were legal and needed to save Tunisia from a prolonged political crisis.

The union has demanded a meaningful national dialogue on both political and economic reforms, but it rejected Saied's proposal that it join a small advisory group of other civil society organisations that could submit reform ideas.

Achaab, the newspaper of the union, said that Saied met with UGTT leader on Sunday and informed him that he insisted that the dialogue will be in its current formula that he proposed.

The date of the strike, by UGTT members working in public services and state companies, will be announced later, Tahri said.