Teachers strike to demand 40 percent pay rise

Teachers in Guinea began an indefinite strike on Monday to demand a 40 percent pay rise. With no classes to attend, many pupils in the capital Conakry staged anti-government demonstrations which were broken up by riot police. The pupils chanted anti-government slogans, but no arrests were reported. Bamba Camara, the Secretary General of the Guinean Teachers' Federation, said the nationwide strike had been called to demand a 40 percent pay increase and the full implementation of a 2000 protocol with the government, which set a formula for raising teachers's pay. The average Guinean teacher earns about 250,000 Guinean francs (US$70) per month, but Camara said this was no longer enough to live on, given steep increases in the price of food and transport last year. The last teachers' strike in 1991 paralysed schools throughout Guinea and ended with the government awarding teachers a 100 percent pay increase. The latest stoppage may prevent the planned reopening of Conakry university on Tuesday, since, according to the teachers's federation, university lecturers support their strike. The university was closed by the government in mid-December following three weeks of strikes and demonstrations by students protesting at government plans to knock down their rundown dormitories in order to build new classrooms. Discontent among Guinea’s eight million people is on the rise. Soaring food prices, rising electricity bills and unpaid state salaries have sent former railway workers, students, mine workers and angry residents out onto the streets in the last few months. Teachers are simply the latest to express their anger and frustration. "Teachers salaries are laughable but yet they face tough living conditions," Camara told IRIN. "Transportation alone eats over half of their salaries, while there are other obligations like rent, electricity and water bills, and you know the price of a bag of rice nowadays is anything between 60.000 francs ($17) and 80.000 francs ($22) per bag", he said.