Ethiopia's Union Confederation Says Government Offices Have Stopped Answering It

The body that speaks for organised labour in Ethiopia says it can no longer get a reply out of the government offices it is meant to deal with. The Confederation of Ethiopian Workers' Unions told Tikvah Ethiopia that letters it writes to government institutions on employer and employee questions are not answered, that officials do not pick up when it calls, and that written messages go unacknowledged.

Its president, Kasahun Folo, put the complaint as a question: "Where should we go? To whom should we appeal?"

A procedural complaint with commercial consequences

The confederation's remit is the machinery that sits between employers and workers — wage disputes, workplace safety cases, the interpretation of labour rules. That machinery only works if the ministries and agencies on the other side of it respond. Kasahun said it is the duty of the heads of government institutions to answer the issues workers and employers bring, and that some officials instead keep their doors closed.

For a firm, the practical effect is not abstract. A dispute that the confederation cannot escalate is a dispute that stays where it started, on the employer's payroll and in the employer's plant, until it hardens into something more expensive. Employers rely on the same channels the unions do.

Open

The confederation did not name the institutions it says are not responding, and no ministry has answered the accusation publicly. Nor has the confederation said whether it intends to take the matter to a higher authority, or which one. Tikvah's account is the confederation's side alone.

Sources: Tikvah Ethiopia, 25 September 2026