Mahfoud Threatens to Resume Strike if Cabinet Violates Agreement
Head of the private school teachers association Nehme Mahfoud threatened on Tuesday to resume a strike if the cabinet failed to implement an agreement on the new salaries scale for the public sector.
“We will return to our negative stance again, the 2nd round of the official exams and the school year are endangered,” Mahfoud told Voice of Lebanon radio (100.5).
Earlier this month, the Syndicate Coordination Committee resumed the correction of the official exams for grades 12 and 9 in light of the cabinet’s approval to issue the new salaries scale for the public sector by the end of August.
However, Mahfoud criticized the government’s new wage scale proposal, saying it contains three major gaps.
“The SCC can’t accept the proposal that was published in local newspapers on Monday,” he said.
An Nahar newspaper reported that the ministerial committee tasked with studying the new scale for the public sector completed the final draft of the proposal.
According to the daily, the committee backed down on its commitments to the SCC, a coalition of private and public school teachers and public sector employees.
“The teaching body is mostly affected by the introduced amendments, in addition to the general administration employees,” it noted.
The report said that the secondary school teachers would not receive 60 percent of their rights that the SCC and the cabinet agreed on.
The government argues that any new increase on wages would affect the state’s treasury, saying it is searching for new resources to finance the boost in salaries.
The cabinet agreed to increase the salaries of the teachers after a wage raise was granted to the private sector in January.
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