A mural at a high school Model UN conference in downtown Beirut's UNESCWA building, Feb. 24, 2024. (Credit: João Sousa/L'Orient Today)
“The pension fund for private school teachers started paying salary pensions worth six salaries,” said caretaker Education Minister Abbas Halabi on Thursday.
His statement came after the cabinet approved an agreement under the ministry’s umbrella between the Federation of Private Educational Establishments, the Union of Private Schools Teachers and the Teachers' Pension Fund management.
“Faced with the threat that private school teachers, whose salary pensions have been worth nothing since the lira collapse [from October 2019], will go on strike, we announced that we were ready to pay $10 [around LL900,000] per pupil to cover the initial pension of the 3,970 retired teachers multiplied by six,” the Secretary General of Catholic schools and representative of the Federation of Private Educational Establishments Father Youssef Nasr told L’Orient-Le Jour.
“We threatened private schools with an open strike if the pensioners’ situation is not improved quickly,” said Nehme Mahfoud, president of the Union of Private School Teachers. He added that before this agreement, monthly salary pensions ranged between LL1.5 million and LL3 million liras (the equivalent of $16.75 to $33.51). “To meet their recent commitments to the retired teachers, the schools have to make a LL60 billion monthly contribution to the pension fund,” he added.
Pensioners can’t afford medicine
The agreement, which is based on a six-fold increase in the retirement pensions of private school teachers, is a provisional and urgent measure. It is pending the fate of two laws, voted on in December 2023, reviewing the teachers’ retirement pensions. The labor law does not apply to private or public school teachers.
The first allows the cabinet to contribute LL650 billion liras to the private teachers’ pension fund for one year (until the fund is self-sufficient). The second amends the 1956 law governing the teaching staff and public schools budget so that the contributions made by educational establishments to the fund are paid in dollars and amount to eight percent of each teacher’s salary, including incentives in dollars.
Since the lira collapsed ($1 is currently trading at LL89,500, compared with LL1,507.5 before October 2019), “the retirement pension of private school pensioners has not allowed them to pay for their insurance, or even buy medicines,” said Halabi at a press conference on Thursday.
Parliament passed the two laws mentioned above on Dec. 15 2023 under strong pressure from the Union of Private Schools Teachers. The cabinet sent them back to Parliament for a second reading on Jan. 12 2024 once they were approved by the caretaker cabinet on Dec. 19, instead of publishing them in the Official Gazette.
Catholic schools strongly opposed these two laws and threatened to go open strike. In addition to the contributions in dollars to the teachers’ pension fund and the high percentage imposed, they also rejected the requirement to present a receipt as proof of their contribution to the fund.
Private establishments are on the fence
The two laws were examined by the joint parliamentary committees after their referral. On Tuesday, these committees ruled that the referral of these laws to Parliament was unconstitutional. “It is now up to the plenary assembly to decide,” said Mahfoud.
“In the meantime, the Catholic schools’ contributions to the teachers’ pension fund have already reached LL105 billion and cover pensions for January and February 2024,” said Father Nasr. “Our objective is to hit LL180 billion to cover the month of March,” he added, urging schools to take the necessary steps.
This appeal was added to that of Halabi and Mahfoud. “Schools must make their contributions. Retired teachers have not received their salary pension for March,” Mahfoud said.
This article was originally published in L'Orient-Le Jour. Translated by Joelle El Khoury.