Students at the entrance to a school in Lebanon. (Credit: Hassan Assal)
BEIRUT — The Union of Private School Teachers in Lebanon announced on Thursday that teachers in private schools across Lebanon will go on strike starting Tuesday Jan. 23. The teachers demand that schools contribute to their pension funds so that each monthly payment can be increased sevenfold.
More than 4,000 retired private school teachers have seen their monthly pensions become practically worthless due to the collapse of the Lebanese lira. As a result, monthly payments range between one and a half million and three million liras, which, at the black market exchange rate, comes to around $16-$30 USD.
The union is using this strike to "protest against the institutions that continue to deprive more than 4,000 retired teachers of their livelihood ... after 40 years of dedicated service to education," reads the statement issued by the union. "We have given enough time to solve this problem, but no one has acted."
"Despite our cooperation with outgoing Education Minister Abbas Halabi's initiative, and our participation in the meeting held in his office on Tuesday, resulting in an agreement ... despite the positive atmosphere and the hope that retired teachers had of receiving salaries that would ensure them at least a decent living ... we were surprised today by the Ministry of Education, which informed the union that the educational institutions would not be coming to the scheduled meeting," the statement adds. This means, according to the union, that these institutions have decided not to respond to its pension demands.
On Tuesday, a meeting was held between caretaker Minister of Education Abbas Halabi, President of the Teacher's Union Nehme Mahfoud, the secretary-general of Catholic schools Father Youssef Nasr, and representatives of various parent-teacher committees.
Mahfoud brought a new set of demands to the table and promised to call for a strike on Wednesday if private schools did not respond positively. This came after the referral, to Parliament by the Council of Ministers, of the law on improving teachers' retirement benefits, for a second reading.
An agreement had reportedly been reached at the meeting and the private teachers' union had therefore decided not to strike. "There will be no strike tomorrow, just a normal teaching day," declared Mahfoud at the end of the meeting. If we sign the agreement within 48 hours, there will be no more problems, otherwise, we'll go back to the general assemblies [bringing teachers together]."
However, following the news that representatives from the various educational institutions involved in the negotiations would not be attending the meeting meant for finalizing the agreement, the union declared the strike would take place after all.