Chances are that the prime minister, Navin Ramgoolam, could have a quiet week in London. After nine days, the hunger strikers of the Development Works Corporation (DWC) agreed on Friday to “suspend the strike until the end of January”. They may have understood that the PM was not keen to negotiate and realised they would win nothing out of this sterile strike – except possible health problems in the long-term. Four were taken to hospital on Thursday. But they still hope that the government will end up sympathising with them and agree to their requests.

<B>Destabilised</B>

Six former employees went on strike after they felt their complaints had not been heard by the government. They were protesting against the fact that the government had not guaranteed them a job in the public sector after the closing-down of the DWC. While the situation seemed to have calmed down after the meeting with the PM on Wednesday – Navin Ramgoolam declared that the meeting was cordial and he thought the strike would end there – the situation got even worse for two days with the opposition politicians getting involved (see inset) before finally coming to an end last Friday.

In fact, the strikers may have been destabilised when they realised that the PM would not negotiate. In a short interview he gave to l’express, Navin Ramgoolam made it clear that he would “not give in to any sort of blackmail”. He even made the situation even tenser when he announced that the high-powered committee (HPC), set up to find a compromise, would not meet as planned. He made it clear, before going to London on Thursday, that the government would not negotiate so long as the strike was on. In any case, the absence of Navin Ramgoolam from the country for ten days made chances that the situation would develop very weak.

The government decided to close the DWC because it was going bankrupt with Rs 418 million debts as from June 2005. Each year, the government had to disburse between Rs 54 and Rs 74 million and the minister of Finance, Rama Sithanen, added the closing-down of the DWC in his budget speech. Even though this government was not the first one to state the need for such closure, it took the difficult decision.

Even if trade unionists seemed to provoke the government by stating that the Rs 418 debts did not correspond to reality, they centred their battle on the fact that all the employees were not guaranteed a job in the public service.

By stopping their strike, they maybe hope that the HPC will find them a job in the public sector. All the government’s efforts to make them understand that they would be better off in the private sector seem to have been unsuccessful so far… As none of the parties seems ready to give in, reaching a compromise appears a difficult task… Now or in January!

<B>Opposition support </B>

The main political parties all visited the former DWC employees during their hunger strike in Port-Louis. Opposition leader, Nando Bodha, MSM leader, Pravind Jugnauth, MMM leader, Paul Bérenger, and National Union member, Anil Gayan, were all there to express their solidarity with the strikers. Paul Bérenger even announced he would join in if the move were to go on… But he did not have the opportunity to show his good faith, as the strike has been called off. The prime minister did not appreciate the opposition parties’ move. “These people (the hunger strikers) are manipulated by people in search of power and who have been at the origin of this situation at the DWC.” This is one of the main reasons why he had decided to cancel the HPC meeting. He did not want to “discuss with them under such conditions”.