Algeria: Renewed strikes beset sectors of education, finance and higher education

The boiling social front in Algeria has terminated the “truce” with the government with several trade Unions deciding to wage renewed strikes in various sensitive sectors of activity including those of education, finance and higher education to press for the fulfillment of the workers’ pending socio-professional claims.

The ongoing strike movement to be waged by workers of the relevant sectors will be compounded by planned street rallies and sit-ins outside the ministries concerned to bolster the leverage.

The school bursars’ work stoppage has now entered its fourth month while University students of the LMD cycle have for their part embarked on an open-ended strike, followed by about 60 thousand workers of the finance sector who have also decided to go on strike as from Monday to demand higher wages and better working conditions.

The arduous negotiations undertaken so far between the various parties at issue have so far failed to produce a positive breakthrough acceptable to the Unions representing the striking workers.

A case in point is related to the education unions which announced that the strike was to continue as long as the Minister of Education ignored the workers’ legitimate and overdue demands and until they received a finalized joint draft agreement that included all the demands dropped from the initial record.

The unions stressed the importance of the overdue demands which had been dropped from the joint report signed by the employees of public service and the Ministry of Education.

These focus mainly on settling the status of basic education teachers, promoting primary school teachers who have completed their training in 2012, valuing teachers’ professional expertise and allocating them pedagogical grants, and stopping external recruitment.

The Ministry then highlighted the fact that the strike was declared illegal by the judicial authorities in a ruling issued recently. It has threatened to dismiss all teachers and bursars on strike in accordance with the laws and regulations.

However, the strikes are continuing and unions have toughened their position in reaction to what they called the “unyielding and neglectful” attitude of the authorities concerned.