Teachers strike over non-payment of salaries

Teachers in the Comoros on Monday threatened to continue strike action unless they received more than five months' back payment. In response to a strike called by their union, more than 300 educators across the Indian Ocean archipelago failed to turn up for classes on Sunday, protesting against accumulated salary arrears. The stay-away means that about 3,000 high school students may not be able to write their final exams. "The last time we received a salary was in January, but despite this we have continued with our work. Now the teachers have had enough and we want the government to sort this mess out," the headmaster of Said Mohammed Cheik Secondary School, Abdorahim Said Bacar, told IRIN. On average, teachers in the impoverished country receive KMF150,000 (Comoran Francs) per month, about US $370. "Already the current salaries are not enough to sustain families, and over the last five months the situation has been made even worse. There have been complaints from teachers that they cannot make ends meet - at times the taxi fare from their homes to school is too much for them," Bacar noted. The teachers' union was prepared to negotiate, he said, but on condition that they received "at least one or two months' payment immediately". According to the authorities, insufficient funds was the main cause for the delay in payments, but Bacar countered this by attributing the current situation to political in-fighting. The country's leaders have been at loggerheads over control of key government ministries since an agreement to bring stability to the coup-prone islands was brokered by the Organisation for African Unity in February 2001. "As a result of the confusion over responsibilities, many civil servants have suffered," Bacar said. "We hope, now that a new national assembly has been launched, there will be clarity."