Tunisia’s powerful UGTT union on Friday called a nationwide strike for January 21, the first since President Kais Saied seized sweeping powers, to protest at his escalating crackdown on critics and demand wage negotiations.

The looming walkout could cripple key public sectors and strain a government already strapped for cash, heightening the risk of social unrest amid growing frustration with decaying public services in the North African country.

Saied shut down parliament and began ruling by decree in 2021 in what he called a move to root out rampant corruption and mismanagement, but which the opposition called a coup.

The million-member UGTT warned that the situation was deteriorating and condemned the erosion of civil liberties and Saied's efforts to silence political parties and democratic debate, vowing to resist.

"We are not intimidated by your threats or your prisons. We do not fear jail ... We will continue our struggle," UGTT General Secretary Nourredine Taboubi said on Thursday following an union protest.

The UGTT move reflected growing frustration over eroding freedoms and Saied's clampdown on opposition leaders, journalists and civil society groups amid a chronic cost-of-living crisis that has pushed many Tunisians to the brink.

Rights activists say that since 2021 Saied has dismantled or sidelined opposition parties and civil society groups including the UGTT, jailed top opposition politicians and tightened control over the judiciary.

Saied has denied interfering in the judiciary but said no one is above the law.

The UGTT, which played a central role in Tunisia’s post-2011 democratic transition from decades of dictatorship, has remained openly critical of what Saied's critics describe as an accelerating drift back to authoritarianism.

While the UGTT initially supported Saied’s decision to shut down parliament in 2021, it has opposed his subsequent measures, describing them as an attempt to entrench one-man rule.