The Prime Minister (PM) of Burkina Faso, Me Apollinaire Kyelem De Tambela declared Monday, facing the workers in Ouagadougou, that the demand is neither war nor hatred but an expression of needs with courtesy and determination, on the occasion of International Labor Day.
“Reclamation is not war. Claiming is not hatred. We express our needs with courtesy and determination. If we sit down together, we can find solutions, especially in dialogue. Neither has an interest in trampling on the other”, declared the Prime Minister, Me Apollinaire Kyelem De Tambela in front of the workers mobilized to hand over their protest platform.
Me Kyelem De Tambela spoke on Monday May 1, 2023 on the sidelines of the commemoration of International Workers’ Day where he received the list of grievances from the trade unions.
By the way, Mr. Kyelem indicated that the government must reconcile the contradictory principle.
“If there are bosses it is because there are workers and if there are workers it is because there are bosses. If the company disappears, there will be no more workers, if there are no more workers either, there will be no bosses”, explained the head of the Burkinabè government.
According to him, it will be necessary to try to reconcile these two principles, the interests of employers and the interests of the worker.
“When you pull too much on the interests of the bosses, it can break the string. When you pull too hard on the interests of the workers, it can also create problems,” he said, continuing that this is the situation that the government must manage at all times, to see where the interests of the workers are and see where the interests of employers lie so that together they can continue to operate.
He added that the government has examined all the grievances of the protest platform issued by the trade union organizations in the cabinet council.
“I think that soon you will receive correspondence from us which will express to you the compromises that we have reached and I think that you will derive satisfaction from it,” he noted.
Me Apollinaire Kyelem De Tambela also noted that the labor code is tied up and that the debate is now in the Transitional Legislative Assembly (ALT).
In his opinion, with the difficult security situation that Burkina Faso has been going through for eight (08) years, the top priority remains the safeguard of territorial integrity and the lives of the people.
“If the territory disappears, no right can survive: whether it is the right to employment, the right to create a business, the right of expression, everything will disappear”, he underlined.
“If everyone puts the ball down, if we manage to reconcile interests, we can move forward together for the emancipation and prosperity of all,” he concluded.
For his part, the president of the month for trade union organizations, Ernest Ouédraogo, says he remains attentive to the handling of a certain number of files, in particular the check off of union officials and the labor code, which until then have not known of culmination.
As for the list of grievances, Mr. Ouédraogo indicated that it comprises five (05) major chapters which are, among other things, the security of the populations and their property throughout the territory, measures against the high cost of living, the access to housing and land, respect and expansion of individual and collective freedoms and the promotion of decent work.
Source: Burkina Information Agency