Al-Hadi links strike to teachers’ accumulated entitlements
LIBYA – The head of the Teachers’ Movement, Ashraf Al-Hadi, has stressed that the strike was not education workers’ first choice but came after years of delayed demands and ignored financial rights, pointing to the sacrifices teachers made before being forced into an open-ended strike.
Law No. 4 and court-ordered differentials
In an interview with Al Jazeera, Al-Hadi said the main demands include financial differentials arising from Law No. 4, issued by the House of Representatives in 2018, which was not implemented until three years later, in 2021, under the Dbeibah government.
He explained that the delay in implementing the law built up arrears that led the General Union to go to court and obtain an enforceable, binding ruling ordering the differentials to be paid, but the lack of response led the movement to escalate.
A 15-day deadline and attempts at a settlement
He said the protest began with a sit-in before the school year, with the authorities given 15 days to meet the demands while schools stayed open and administrative work continued, before the deadline expired without any tangible response.
He added that the meetings later held with teachers’ representatives did not produce adequate offers, and that the gap between the demands and what had been agreed widened, with teachers continuing to insist on better pay and payment of their arrears.
A 1,600-dinar salary and gaps of up to 8,000
Al-Hadi said the average teacher’s salary is about 1,600 dinars a month, equivalent to about 130 dollars at the parallel market rate by his estimate, amid rising prices of goods and foodstuffs.
He said the gaps between teachers’ pay and that of their counterparts in some sectors range from 7,000 to 8,000 dinars, citing the Administrative Control Authority, universities, the armed forces and the judiciary, whose employees have received increases.
He argued that passing laws and increases for those sectors after Law No. 4 was implemented had deepened the disparities, while the education, health and interior sectors remained, as he put it, marginalised despite their role in society.
Call for a unified scale and real guarantees
He renewed his call for a unified salary scale for all sectors that achieves fairness and narrows the gaps, instead of continued discrimination between jobs and sectors that enjoy higher financial benefits.
He said teachers had repeatedly warned the executive and legislative authorities, through protests and statements, that ignoring their demands would lead to a general strike, but the warnings went unheeded.
He noted that years of protests without results had weakened trust in institutions, making an end to the strike without real guarantees that the demands will be met unacceptable to many teachers.
On the strike’s impact on pupils, he said the movement wants the Dbeibah government and the House of Representatives to take the initiative in settling teachers’ rights, first and foremost by paying the financial differentials through a substantial first instalment.
