UPI
19 March 2009
HARARE, Zimbabwe, March 19 (UPI) — Zimbabwe cannot guarantee teachers will be paid this month, the new government’s education minister said, triggering a call for another teachers strike.
“While we are very concerned with the genuine demands of the teachers, right now I cannot promise anything in terms of salaries,” David Coltart told a news conference.
He said the nation’s “treasury coffers are almost bare” and appealed to the unions to show a spirit of patriotism by delaying any strike action while the government seeks money for salaries from the international community, the ZimOnline News Agency reported.
The country’s pleas for international money have failed so far, Coltart said.
The government offered in February to pay the teachers, like other civil servants, $100 a month — the first time their salaries would be paid in a foreign currency — but the union argued that $100 would have the buying power of $2 a month due to Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation, Southwest Radio Africa reported.
The unions rejected the offer, first demanding $2,300 a month and later softening their demands, insisting teachers receive meaningful salary increases.
“If within 14 days they don’t give us a satisfactory answer, we are going back to the trenches (and plan a strike for the second term in May),” Firebrand Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe Secretary-General Raymond Majongwe said.
The teachers have been on strike over pay disputes and working conditions much of last year and the beginning of this year, SW Radio Africa said.