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Background

Pay deals and the right to bargain

Article 15 of the 2026 finance law leaves the pay rise for 2026 to 2028 to a decree, in the private sector as well as the public one, and the general strike the UGTT called against it was never held. With the national round closed, the disputes have moved down to single sectors and to agreements signed years ago.

Tunisia's pay rise for 2026 to 2028 was fixed by decree, not negotiated. State employees get premiums of 90 to 120 dinars spread over three years, where the last negotiated round was worth 195 to 300 dinars. Inflation was 5.1 percent in July 2026.
Pay deals and the right to bargain

In the fuel haulage dispute of August 2026 the two sides never sat at the same table. The industry ministry met the company owners on one side, the general federation of petroleum met the workers on the other, and the joint meeting that was meant to follow never happened. On 22 August the federation said it would file a strike notice to force the application of agreements already signed. Talks with the companies were due to resume on 24 August.

Article 15 of the 2026 finance law, promulgated on 12 December 2025, raises wages and salaries in the public and private sectors for 2026, 2027 and 2028, extends the rise to pensions, and leaves the amount to a decree. Decree 68 followed on 30 April, giving 5 percent on base pay and on the transport and attendance allowances to non-agricultural sectors bound by collective agreements. Each of the three yearly rises is backdated to 1 January of its own year.

Until then the rise was negotiated every three years by the government, the UGTT and the employers' federation UTICA, a mechanism in place since the 1970s. Kapitalis dates the breakdown of that dialogue to 2021. The union wrote to the head of government Sarra Zaafrani on 22 November 2025 to demand talks, and called article 15 a historic precedent that threatened the foundations of the Tunisian social model. It says more than fifteen of its letters have gone unanswered.

The last negotiated round was worth 195 to 300 dinars a grade and ran from 2022 to 2025. This one reaches state employees as fixed premiums of 90 to 120 dinars spread over three years, while INS put inflation at 5.1 percent in July 2026. Public pay costs 25.267 billion dinars in the 2026 budget, which La Presse puts at 13 to 14 percent of GDP. The social affairs minister Issam Lahmar says a decree is one of the three routes labour law allows.

The UGTT voted a general strike on 5 December 2025 for 21 January 2026. It was called off on 13 January: the secretary-general had resigned, so nobody could sign the notice. In May its leadership still spoke of a general strike as a possibility. The pressure moved to the sectors. Municipal workers want a promised statute issued and an allowance paid, Gafsa phosphate staff want the rises of 2015 to 2017 put into base pay, and the drivers who blocked Radès on 20 August walked out without the union.

With the national rise fixed by decree, the conflict reappeared one sector at a time, and over agreements already signed. The UGTT's private-sector department filed a strike notice for heavy-goods drivers carrying hydrocarbons on 23 and 24 September 2026, citing a failure to respect previous agreements: social cover with the CNSS, and application of an agreement reached on 2 May 2019. The employers' side disputes nearly every part of that. Fethi Zouari, who heads the national chamber for the transport of dangerous goods, said on Diwan FM that most drivers would not join, that the companies had received no legal strike notice under article 376 and following of the Labour Code, that the late CNSS contributions came from the financial difficulties of two firms and had been settled several weeks earlier, and that the 2 May 2019 agreement had been abandoned and cancelled years ago. So the two sides do not even agree that the agreement being invoked still exists, which is what bargaining looks like once the national round is no longer held.

”The increases decided do not answer the deterioration in purchasing power and the rise in the cost of living”
UGTT department for public offices and enterprisesThe UGTT structure covering staff of public offices and state-owned enterprises

The numbers

What article 15 of the 2026 finance law says
Article 15 has three sentences. The first raises wages and salaries in the public and private sectors for 2026, 2027 and 2028. The second extends the rise to pensions. The third says the rise in wages, salaries and pensions is fixed by decree. Negotiation is not mentioned. The text is law No. 17 of 2025, dated 12 December 2025.
Ministry of Finance
The decree that set the figure
5%
Decree 68 of 2026, published in the official gazette on 30 April 2026, sets a rise of 5 percent on base pay and on the transport and attendance allowances for non-agricultural sectors under the Labour Code that are covered by sectoral collective agreements. It covers 2026, 2027 and 2028, and applies retroactively from 1 January for each of the three years.
L'Économiste Maghrébin
The letter that called it a precedent
The UGTT wrote to the head of government Sarra Zaafrani on 22 November 2025, demanding the immediate opening of social negotiations and rejecting article 15 outright. It called the article a historic precedent that threatens the foundations of the Tunisian social model. Al-Shaab News, the union's own outlet, puts the letter in a run of more than fifteen that successive governments left unanswered.
L'Économiste Maghrébin
The public wage bill in the 2026 budget
25.267 billion dinars, against 24.389 billion in 2025, a rise of 3.6 percent, covering about 687,000 civil servants and more than 800,000 pensioners. The budget also provides for 22,523 new posts and the regularisation of 51,878 precarious jobs. La Presse puts the public wage bill at between 13 and 14 percent of GDP.
La Presse de Tunisie
What the last negotiated round delivered
195-300 DT
The rise before this one was applied from 2022 to 2025 and was worth between 195 and 300 dinars depending on grade, paid in three instalments.
La Presse de Tunisie
What inflation was doing at the same time
5.1%
INS measured inflation at 5.1 percent in July 2026. Food and drink prices rose 6.6 percent over the year, slowing from 7.1 percent in June.
INS
The general strike that was voted
The UGTT's administrative commission, meeting in Tunis on 5 December 2025, approved a general strike and set it for 21 January 2026. Echaab News, the union's own site, said it was called to defend rights and freedoms, union rights, the negotiation of wage rises and the gains of social dialogue. Kapitalis writes that dialogue with the government had been broken since 2021, and that the authorities had dropped the mechanism in place since the 1970s under which the three-yearly rises were negotiated between the UGTT, UTICA and the government.
Kapitalis
Why the strike was not held
The strike notice has to be signed by the secretary-general at least ten days before the date. The secretary-general had resigned, which blocked the legal procedure, and the union's spokesman announced the postponement on 13 January 2026, eight days before the date.
Kapitalis
The form the rise takes for public employees
90-120 DT
Fixed premiums of between 90 and 120 dinars, which do not touch base pay. The UGTT's department for public offices and enterprises says earlier rises were calculated as a percentage of base pay and fed through to the other premiums and benefits. It says the net effect after deductions will be limited, and spread over three years.
WebManagerCenter
The Gafsa phosphate strike notice
Staff and managers at the Compagnie des phosphates de Gafsa filed notice of a strike on 1, 2 and 3 September 2026 if their demands were not met. The demands included immediate application of every set of minutes and every agreement already concluded, application of the wage rises, and the folding of the 2015, 2016 and 2017 rises into base pay for all staff.
La Presse de Tunisie
What the Gafsa strike actually did
The strike went ahead. Work stopped on Tuesday 1 September 2026 across the phosphate quarries and washeries, the workshops, the district headquarters, the loading centres and the general management offices in Tunis and Gafsa. Réalités gives no figure for how many staff joined.
Réalités
What the municipal workers are asking for
The sector's administrative commission, meeting on 1 August 2026, voted a two-day strike across the sector and left the date to the general federation for municipal workers, working with the UGTT's public service department. Its demands include a national programme to renew municipal fleets and equipment, protective gear, and a plan against workplace accidents. It also demands that earlier agreements be carried out: that the general statute for municipal staff be issued and the special allowance paid. It says the authorities have closed off dialogue.
Babnet
The fuel drivers' stoppage
Tanker drivers stopped work at the Radès oil depot on 20 August 2026, and queues of cars formed outside petrol stations across Greater Tunis. Slim Sahimi, who heads the general federation of petroleum and chemical products, said the drivers were demanding the rises provided by the finance law and the settling of their position with the social security fund, and that the UGTT had not called the strike. The drivers say social contributions were deducted from their pay and never passed to the fund.
La Presse de Tunisie
Where the fuel dispute stands
The general federation of petroleum said on 22 August 2026 that it would file a strike notice in fuel haulage within days, to demand that agreements already concluded be applied. The union had stepped in to suspend the drivers' stoppage, and the joint negotiating meeting that was to follow never took place. Talks so far have been separate: the ministry with the company owners, the federation with the workers. Discussions with the companies were to resume on 24 August. The federation says 99 percent of the sector is private.
La Presse de Tunisie

What the comparison shows

Where they agree

Neither side claims the 2026 rise was negotiated. The social affairs minister says a decree is one of the three routes labour law allows, and that this rise took a legal one. The UGTT's letter of 22 November 2025 calls the same article a historic precedent that threatens the foundations of the Tunisian social model.

Where they split

The minister argues about the route, the department about the form. Issam Lahmar says a decree is one of three ways labour law allows a rise, so the law was followed. The UGTT's department for public offices and enterprises says a fixed premium of 90 to 120 dinars leaves base pay untouched, where the old rises were a percentage of base pay and lifted the other premiums and benefits with them.

What nobody is saying

Nobody says what happens to an agreement that is signed and then not applied. Article 15 changed who fixes the rise, and it does not reach that question. In fuel haulage the meeting that would have put the state, the employers and the workers in one room was arranged and never held, and each side went on seeing the ministry alone.

Who says what

Mouldi Guessoumi, Researcher in political sociology

He says the authorities do not want to destroy the UGTT but to tame it, and that they have kept it out of the social negotiations it used to lead, pay included. He reads the president's decision to announce the rise alone as an attempt to make any increase look like a favour granted from above rather than a deal.

”un simple décor dans l'espace public”a mere decoration in the public space
Source: Nawaat · Thursday, 7 May 2026
Slaheddine Selmi, Secretary-general of the UGTT

At a march in Sfax on 5 August 2026 he said the union would stay neither silent nor still. He also said it had gone past the social question and past wage rises, and listed water, electricity, health, transport and schooling as debts the state owes citizens.

Source: Kapitalis · Wednesday, 5 August 2026
Sami Tahri, UGTT spokesman in January 2026

He called the failure to hold the general strike a legal impossibility rather than a retreat, and said the resignation had left the union disorganised. The executive bureau would meet urgently, he said, and a new date would have to come from a majority of its members to carry weight.

Source: Kapitalis · Tuesday, 13 January 2026
Issam Lahmar, Minister of Social Affairs

He told a joint committee hearing in parliament on 11 November 2025 that the rise written into the 2026 finance bill had followed legal procedure. Labour law, he said, provides three routes to a pay rise: an individual contract, a law or decree, or a collective agreement reached through social negotiation.

Source: Radio Nationale · Tuesday, 11 November 2025
UGTT department for public offices and enterprises, The UGTT structure covering staff of public offices and state-owned enterprises

It wants base pay in public enterprises revised, and rises that keep pace with inflation across 2026 to 2028. It asked for real social dialogue on the point, and got a decree instead.

”Les majorations décidées ne répondent pas à la détérioration du pouvoir d'achat et à la hausse du coût de la vie”The increases decided do not answer the deterioration in purchasing power and the rise in the cost of living
Source: WebManagerCenter · Friday, 8 May 2026

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