The Teachers’ Union, SINPROF, calls for a second phase of strike, starting December 6 and lasting 10 days. Despite 6 days of lockout last November and despite having held discussions in recent days with the ministry of Education to try to reach an agreement on the claim booklet delivered in October 2019, this teachers’ representative organization considers that there has been no satisfactory response.
After six days of strike action, between November 23 and 30, the strike called by SINPROF was suspended on Thursday. This suspension should however be short-lived, since the teachers’ union is calling for a new strike as early as next Tuesday until December 16, after further unsuccessful contacts with the employer.
On the table for talks is a set of demands dating from 2019 that covers the modalities of career progression, subsidies and working conditions, as recalled by João Francisco, provincial secretary of SINPROF in Huila, southern Angola.
In giving an account of the disappointment of the teachers with the result of the contacts maintained so far with the government, João Francisco is particularly critical of the Angolan president. “The teachers here in our province are also worn down by the silence of the holder of executive power. Our power here is unipersonal. It is up to the president of the Republic to come out and say something that will calm the teachers’ souls (…) We don’t understand how the president of the Republic, who has education as one of his priorities on his agenda, has so far said nothing,” laments the union leader.
In the same public statement, the president of SINPROF also announced that he will submit to the International Labor Organization (ILO) evidence of threats against teachers who joined the strike. When Guilherme Silva mentioned that teachers are threatened with absences and that they receive calls to “return to school by force”, he considered that “at this moment a psychological terror is being lived from Cabinda to Cunene, from Luau to Lobito, among the teachers”.