Public school teachers hold warning strike over pay

BEIRUT — Public school teacher unions confirmed they will hold a warning strike on Tuesday after talks with Education Minister Rima Karameh failed to meet their pay demands.

They announced the postponement of their originally planned sit-in due to bad weather, according to the state-run National News Agency (NNA).

The previous strike movement took place on Dec. 16, aiming to push authorities to immediately reconsider the working conditions of teachers, which have suffered since the collapse of the Lebanese pound in 2019, and to adopt a new salary scale.

In a statement, the unions regretted that "no figures have been set by the authorities concerning the proposed salary increases."

The minister nevertheless referred to ongoing meetings with the government and the finance ministry, as well as "the government’s intention to study the public sector and possible salary increases."

"The discussions [with the minister] remained at the stage of promises," union representatives said. Central to the exchanges was also "how to make up for strike days: for students, by intensifying lessons, and for contract teachers, by adding extra classes [as they are only paid when they teach], a proposal approved by the minister," the statement specified.

Weighed down by crisis, declining standards and repeated strikes, public schools now enroll only a quarter of students in Lebanon, estimated at 1,084,000 for the 2023-2024 school year by the Center for Educational Research and Development (CRDP).

Since the financial crisis in 2019, public sector teachers’ salaries have undergone some adjustments, but these have only been cosmetic measures meant to buy time while awaiting a full overhaul of the civil service salary scale, which still has not been accomplished.

Other demands listed include increasing the monthly allowance for retired national education staff and improving the hourly wage for contract teachers.

The League of Contract Teachers in Basic Public Education in Lebanon does not adhere to all of these demands.

Aside from improving the hourly wage, which remains very low, the league is calling for the monthly allowances from which its teachers have been excluded, as well as transportation and end-of-service allowances, and the payment of family benefits.

Furthermore, contract teachers have been demanding permanent appointments for years, but this issue has been blocked for reasons of confessional imbalance, noting that hiring in the public sector — which is now frozen — has always been driven by clientelist criteria.