Africa-Press – Cape verde. Cape Verdean teachers’ unions today rejected a memorandum of understanding with the Government to resolve pending issues and avoid a two-day class strike scheduled for next week.
On the second day of negotiations between the Government and three unions representing teachers, there was once again no understanding, and the teachers rejected a memorandum of understanding, the strike notice for 22 and 23 November remains in place, says an official note from the government.
According to Lusa, which cites the Government, the unions’ only argument is the fact that they did not accept the initial proposal to increase the base salary by 35% (to 107 thousand escudos, around 970 euros), which would have a “ budgetary impact” of more than 2.25 billion escudos (20.4 million euros).
The Executive highlighted that it presented a “more solid, more consistent, sustainable and far-reaching proposal, benefiting teachers ”, and that it considers that the current suggestion is “unsustainable for any Government, anywhere in the world ”.
The government promises to review the salary increase as part of the update of the teachers’ remuneration table planned for the review of the Teaching Staff Career Statute (ECPD), the process of which is ongoing and should be completed in May 2024.
“ What the unions have not accepted so far ,” the president of the National Union of Teachers (Sindep), Jorge Cardoso, told Lusa, noting, however, that negotiations are not yet closed and will resume on Monday.
According to the same source, teachers also ask for the completion of reclassifications, automatic promotion, regularization of the granting of subsidies for non-reduction in working hours until 2024, improvement of the careers of masters, doctors and university professors, regularization of the careers of kindergarten teachers, regularization of the teacher transition process and review of the Teaching Staff Career Statute.
The Teachers’ Union of the island of Santiago (Siprofis) and the Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sindprof) were also present at the meeting.
The Government was represented by the deputy prime minister and minister of Finance, Olavo Correia, and by the ministers of Education, Amadeu Oliveira, and of State Modernization and Public Administration, Edna Oliveira.
The executive, continues Lusa, says that it “ responded positively ” to the demands of the unions to eliminate all these pending issues and normalize the management of teachers’ careers within the framework of the execution of the State Budget for the economic year 2024, adding that it has already invested more of 5.4 million euros to resolve pending issues for teachers and for next year it has set aside more than 900 thousand euros to regularize careers.
The Prime Minister, Ulisses Correia e Silva, said there was room for negotiations given the threat of this strike by teachers and also that of health professionals, which has since been suspended after an agreement between the government and the class, says this newspaper’s source.
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