Gafsa's miners give notice of a September strike, three weeks after the state guaranteed a loan to modernize their mines
On August 17, the UGTT's mining federation filed notice of a three-day strike at the Gafsa Phosphate Company for September 1-3, saying management and the ministry never answered its request for wage talks. The notice comes three weeks after parliament approved a state guarantee for a 110 million euro EBRD loan meant to modernize the company's mining equipment. The people who watch this company do not agree on what is actually broken: unpaid wages, a bloated payroll, worn-out equipment, or a water shortage.
Where they agree
Four of the five voices, the union, the accountant, the chief executive and the MP, treat CPG's condition as a structural crisis built up over years, not a temporary setback. None of them defends the status quo or says the company should be allowed to fail, and each aims to save it, not close it.
Where they split
They disagree on what is broken. The union blames unmet wage deals and management's silence, wanting the strike to force talks. The accountant blames the payroll, more than tripled since 2010 while output halved, and wants private capital over higher wages. The chief executive blames worn equipment, rail capacity and water, not wages. The MP backs the recent merger of leadership but says it changes nothing without deeper reform. The minister was never asked about CPG at all: his defense of a separate GCT financing deal, approved a day after the CPG loan, shows the two companies' money is kept apart even as their management has just been merged.
What nobody is saying
Nobody on the union or ministry side has publicly addressed the accountant's figures on headcount tripling while output halved, whether to dispute them or defend the added jobs. Nobody explains the three weeks between parliament approving a loan meant to modernize CPG's mining equipment and a strike notice over unpaid wages, either. Whether that loan was ever meant to touch the wage dispute is a question none of the voices quoted here has been asked.
The federation's strike notice, filed August 17 after management and the ministry left a request for talks unanswered, demands that already agreed wage increases be implemented, a four percent rise in the compensation allowance, an end-of-career payment equal to the one at GCT, the state chemical group, and folding the 2015-2017 pay rises into base salary.
Argues it is the payroll, not a lack of financing, that is making the company unprofitable. He points out CPG employed 902 people in 2010 producing 8 million tonnes, against over 3,000 employees in 2024 producing about half that, and says the only realistic fix is opening the company's capital to a private partner.
”Le principal problème qui handicape l'entreprise et l'empêche d'évoluer et de rattraper son retard par rapport à ses concurrents, anciens et nouveaux, c'est la masse salariale importante qui alourdit ses dépenses, grève son budget et réduit considérablement ses marges, malgré la hausse continue des cours du produit sur le marché international.”The main problem holding the company back and stopping it from catching up with its competitors, old and new, is the large payroll that weighs down its spending, strains its budget and considerably cuts its margins, despite the continuous rise in the product's price on the international market.
Frames the company's problems as capital and infrastructure ones: worn-out equipment, weak rail capacity and too little water for washing the ore. He has set out a plan to raise output to 5 million tonnes by 2028 and 9.4 million by 2035, and his public remarks on the strategy have not addressed the wage and back-pay demands behind the strike notice.
The day after parliament approved CPG's EBRD-backed loan, he defended a separate Islamic financing arrangement for GCT, agreed under draft laws 50 and 51. He said that money pays for imported raw materials such as sulphur and ammonia, not equipment upgrades, a distinction that leaves CPG's wage dispute untouched.
”les financements faisant l'objet des projets de loi n° 50 et n° 51 de l'année 2026, ne sont pas destinés à la modernisation des moyens de production du Groupe Chimique Tunisien (GCT) mais à l'importation de matières premières nécessaires à la production d'engrais”the financing covered by draft laws no. 50 and no. 51 of 2026 is not intended for modernizing the production means of the Tunisian Chemical Group (GCT) but for importing the raw materials needed for fertilizer production
Backs merging CPG and GCT under one chief executive, calling it among the government's best recent decisions, but says the move alone settles nothing: the sector needs structural change at the administrative, financial and governance levels, not just a change of leadership.
”الدمج الإداري بين الزوز شركات يعد من أفضل القرارات التي اتخذتها الحكومة”the administrative merger of the two companies is among the best decisions the government has taken