Cape Verdean teachers will go on strike for two days from Wednesday November 22, due to a lack of agreement with the government on salary adjustments and other issues, a Union leader confirmed.
“The strike is still on,” confirmed Jorge Cardoso, from the National Teachers’ Union (Sindep), after two other Unions – the Santiago Island Teachers’ Union (Siprofis) and the Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sindprof) – had been in intense negotiations with the Government over the last few days to resolve pending issues and avoid a strike, but without success.
“The government wants to play games and we’re willing to treat things seriously, but we’ll never accept a game,” said the union leader, indicating that the biggest point of contention has to do with the salary increase for the teaching profession.
The teachers want a 35% increase in their basic salary (to 107,000 escudos, around 970 euros), but the government has not accepted this proposal, justifying that it would have a “budgetary impact” of more than 2.25 billion escudos (20.4 million euros).
Jorge Cardoso guaranteed that the teachers “are determined” to continue the struggle “until the last consequences” and “it’s not just tomorrow (Wednesday) and the day after tomorrow (Thursday)”.
“If the government, in the person of the Minister [of Education, Amadeu Cruz], calls us to sign an agreement, but a closed one, we won’t have any problems, we’ll be ready, because we have no interest in creating problems,” he said, speaking to the press.
The president of Sindep said that he expected more than 90% of the students to join the strike over the two days, estimating that there will be no classes in any educational establishment at all levels – from the 1st to the 12th grades.