2023-06-13 12:51:08
Until then, they were alone in their fight. Contract teachers seeking payment of their bonuses have just received support from the Guinean Social Forces Forum (FFSG). This platform, which brings together several civil society organizations, denounced the treatment reserved for contract teachers during a press conference on June 12. The FFSG would consider actions, to express “strongly” its support for these teachers who demonstrated recently, to demand the payment of seven months of arrears of bonuses.
The coordinator of the FFSG, Abdoul Sacko, protests against the lack of solidarity towards contract teachers. ” The situation in which they find themselves shows that our motto Work-Justice-Solidarity makes absolutely no sense (…) How can we conceive that people who have accepted meager means, meager salaries, who have abandoned their families, their pleasure , their leisure, to go to the villages with a million Guinean francs, are abandoned without anyone getting up to say stop? (…) Today, work no longer counts, because it is not work that is paid. It’s your ability to speak for a politician, it’s your ability to be a political support that makes you benefit from the largesse of the state. Otherwise, honestly, if the work made sense, the Guinean should not remain silent in the face of (the situation) of these teachers who received only one million Guinean francs a month, for daily and full-time work. According to Abdoul Sacko, they are from ” real soldiers “transformed into” beggars. It’s embarrassing when you see the State taking pride after having abandoned people for eight months, we take it as a trophy of war because we’re going to pay them for two months. What worse way to treat workers! Where is the justice ? It is time that we give ourselves the means to get our contract teachers out of this begging…”, launched the coordinator.
Recently, the Ministries of Territorial Administration and Decentralization and Pre-university Education and Literacy, after a mission on the subject of these teachers, said they had detected ” fake diplomas “, among others. Despite everything, the government had promised to pay the premiums with reminder of the arrears to those who were ” regularly in front of the students and who actually work in the communities ».
But for Boubacar Biro Barry trade union member of the FFSG, ” one cannot question the qualification of a teacher, without it being proven from the point of view of employment. We defend people who are treated unfairly and dishonorable, not to say unworthy ».
Solidarity?
The SLECG of Aboubacar Soumah, at the time of Alpha Condé, had launched a strike to demand a salary of 8 million Guinean francs for each teacher. These ” contractual teachers have arranged with the authorities to go and teach instead of the strikers. Don’t you think that today they have fallen into their own trap? underlines a journalist. Clearly, these contract teachers had not been in solidarity with the strike launched by Aboubacar Soumah, whom Alpha Condé had then treated as a “rebel”. Boubacar Biro Barry takes the microphone: “ Evil cannot be cured with evil. Today, we have an evil in front of us, we cannot use another evil to cure it. They are in a position to be helped, to be supported, we support them, the rest will come later. Because there are these arrears which must be dissociated from the commitment. This commitment is subject to the presentation of diplomas from ISSEG, ENI (…) We are not victims of these teachers, we are their defenders. So, we don’t have to replace a union, or the state, to say it’s good for you, you only have your eyes to cry. We seek to restore social justice. »
The FFSG coordinator, Abdoul Sacko, finds the question interesting, “ because, he says, it is evil in Guinea too “. Usually, he continues, we defend the law, the values and the principles according to the head of the one who is in front of us. The rulers take advantage of this to say: Yesterday, someone did this to you, let me destroy him. You cross your arms, forgetting after the latter, the next victim will be you. He thinks that Guineans must abandon these partisan considerations, to be united and to defend only the right, whatever the transgressor, whatever the victim. Otherwise, they will remain in a vicious circle, they will all be served in turn, they will be perpetual victims. ».
Other actions to support these teachers
After his press conference which they called ” questioning the collective conscience “, by thematic group, the members of the FFSG will get in touch with the ” human rights defenders, trade unions, so that everyone is held accountable said Abdoul Sacko. Also, with the contractual teachers, the FFSG will define actions, but its agenda “ will not necessarily depend of these.
Why, now is the time to support teachers? ” It’s never too late to do well. When it comes to human rights, it’s never late to do the right thing “, replied Ibrahima Aminata Diallo, the president of CONAPED (National Coalition of Associations for Peace and Development).
Mamadou Sire Diallo
#Social #Forces #Forum #supports #contract #teachers