Algeria: Teachers cling to strike action amid the authorities’ indifference

A large number of teachers of secondary schools in Algeria have vowed to go on with their strike action launched earlier this week in support for salary hikes and better working conditions.

  They decided to wage a one-day renewable strike every week in order to bring the national education ministerial department to address their pending file and fulfill their long-overdue salary claims, as they put it in a statement to Echorouk.

 A spokesman for the striking teachers, Nouar Larbi, told Echorouk in this connection that the neglected teachers were determined to pursue their work- stoppage until the settlement of their bona-fide social and professional grievances by the authorities concerned.

 He further firmly castigated the excessive use of force exerted by the security forces when they harshly broke up a peaceful sit-in held on Tuesday by hundreds of disgruntled teachers outside the premises of the national education ministry in central Algiers.

Scores of striking teachers were rounded up in the ensuing scuffles between the two sides.