Strike fails to upset Tonga public services

Tonga's airport and wharves are remaining open despite a determined strike by more than 1000 of the country's civil servants, who are seeking significant pay rises.

The strike, which began 12 days ago, has not hit as hard as some people had expected.

New Zealand's High Commissioner to Tonga, Michael McBryde, said about one-quarter of the country's 4000 civil servants remained on strike.

They tended to be support and administrative workers at the lower end of the pay scales. Senior staff remained at work, he said.

The industrial action by the newly created Public Service Association was somewhat haphazard as Tonga did not really have experience with unions, bar a few professional groupings such as doctors and nurses, said McBryde.

Earlier successful public protests this year had encouraged the strikers to believe they could make gains over the 12.5 per cent pay rise offer put on the table by the Government.

A large public demonstration in mid-May succeeded in putting a power company back into Government hands, and another protest not long after had seen farmers succeed in gaining exemptions to a new consumption tax.

The civil servant strike was an "interesting exercise in risk-wrestling", McBryde said.

The deputy chairman of the pro-strike Tongan Human Rights and Democracy Movement, Lopeti Senituli, said the Government was toughening it out.

The bulk of church-run secondary schools were open, and Government primary schools had brought their holidays forward.

Civil servants are seeking pay rises from 17 to 80 per cent. Some are paid as little as $47 a week.