Strike Shuts Down West African Nation

Bissau Taps dried up and lights flickered out in Guinea-Bissau on Thursday as a general strike shut down utilities, transport, radio and television nationwide.

More than 70 percent of the western African country’s laborers walked off the job to protest a new government salary plan that would pay civil employees a minimum $20 monthly.

That base wage won’t even buy basic food, said Carlos Jamanca, the spokesman for the country’s only labor union, the National Workers’ Union.

The union is demanding that monthly salaries be scaled at least to the price of two 110-lb. sacks of rice, currently about $50.

The strike is to last until Saturday.