Teachers strike ends after salary hike
Teachers strike ends after salary hike
BEKASI, West Java (JP): Teachers at a private elementary
school here, SD Tunas Jakasampurna, have resumed teaching after
their demand for a 20 percent salary hike was met by the school
foundation.
All 60 teachers at the school staged a protest and refused to
teach earlier this week to highlight their demand for the rise.
"The strike lasted about two hours. The teachers sat in the
school office while waiting for the conclusion of the foundation
meeting," a female teacher who asked not to be identified told
The Jakarta Post yesterday.
The teachers are paid between Rp 80,000 (US$34.3) and Rp
190,000 per month depending on their teaching hours.
The school has 48 classes and 2,300 pupils. Each student pays
Rp 1.5 million as an entry fee and a monthly fee of Rp 45,000.
Another source who also requested anonymity told the Post that
the main reason for the strike was the recruitment by the
foundation of higher-paid teachers from the Gandhi Memorial
School.
According to the source, the salaries of the new teachers,
recruited on a contractual basis, are 10 times higher than those
of the regular teachers.
The principal, Alberta Sumartini, and the chairman of the
Tunas Jakasampurna foundation, Teddy Darmaputra, were not
available for comment.
Regretted
Meanwhile Minister of Education and Culture Wardiman
Djojonegoro said that he regretted the teachers' strike.
"Any teachers' strike is costly. They victimize the
schoolchildren and the parents," Wardiman told the press after a
hearing with House Commission IX for education recently.
He said he had formed a team to investigate the matter.
Wardiman said that he would also investigate a report that the
Bekasi office of the Ministry of Education and Culture had
arbitrarily cut the salaries of teachers at several other schools
in the regency. According to the report many teachers in the
regency were forced to subscribe to some publications. The
payment for the publications was deducted from the teachers'
salaries. (kod)