Al-Kadoushi refuses to settle for promises and decisions
LIBYA – The head of the teachers’ union in Zliten, Ahmed Al-Kadoushi, has said teachers will not end their sit-in or return to schools until tangible results appear on the ground, arguing that past promises and agreements did not lead to the implementation of decisions on their rights.
Earlier sit-ins and decisions never implemented
In a phone interview on the Hiwar Al-Masaa programme on the Tanasuh channel — followed and summarised by Al-Marsad — Al-Kadoushi said teachers had suffered for years under successive governments, including those of Zeidan and Fayez Al-Sarraj, with sit-ins ended on the strength of promises and agreements and the school year then ending without them being implemented.
He said several decisions had been issued but not properly implemented, above all Law No. 4 of 2018, adopted by the House of Representatives, which took effect in September 2021 following a teachers’ sit-in. “Teachers have now had enough of promises and enough of decisions,” he said.
First salary payment the test of the unified scale
Asked whether the sit-in could end if the salary scale were formally approved and became law, Al-Kadoushi said the first salary under it must first be paid and applied in practice, so that it could be judged how far it meets teachers’ aspirations.
He said an earlier Government of National Unity decision, which followed an agreement with the General Union and a group of union members and provided for a rise of between 5% and 10%, had not been accepted by rank-and-file teachers because it did not meet their aspirations and contained what he described as legal flaws.
He questioned whether that decision applied to all state-sector employees paid from the public treasury.
Distinction allowances and the postponed parliamentary vote
He stressed that teachers’ demands are not limited to the size of the increase, but include a unified salary scale for all sectors with distinction allowances between state-sector employees, so that the highest and lowest allowances, and the education sector’s share of them, are clear.
Al-Kadoushi expressed surprise at the House of Representatives’ announcement the previous day that it was postponing the vote on the unified salary scale law for two weeks, which could extend the wait until 2 November, saying the file had already taken a long time and that teachers face, in his words, an extraordinary situation.
