THE LATEST episode in the escalating public criticism of the Palestinian Authority's financial policies was manifested this week when government school teachers observed a strike to protest their wages.
The strike began on February 14 in all West Bank government schools. It was called for by the Higher Coordinating Committee of Teachers to protest "Palestinian Authority dismissal of their demands to increase their salaries that have decreased in recent years by a rate of 30% to 40%," the committee said in a leaflet.
This committee is a kind of secret committee, where its members are difficult to reach. One of the committee members explained this as resulting from the lack of freedom which prevents people from expressing themselves and consider any attempt to do so as an attempt directed against the Palestinian Authority
The Palestinian Authority has deducted 10% of January's salary for each governmental employee for what it calls a "retirement fund." The move, said the Authority, was intended to implement the Civil Service Law that was ratified by the Palestinian Legislative Council and President Yasser Arafat last year, which guarantees all civil servants retirement benefits, and provides reasonable compensation in case of casualty or work stoppage, and links the employees' salaries with the cost-of-living index.
Sources say that over 20,000 teachers are participating in the strike. The Palestinian Authority, for its part, is still refusing to meet with teachers representatives or to negotiate. "Their strike is motivated by opponents of the Palestinian Authority and could affect the future of the students," according to a leaflet of a committee formed by the Ministry of Education to discuss the issue. The committee is headed by Ahmad 'Abdul al-Rahim, who works at the offices of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
"It seems that the Authority is seeking to confuse things," the head of the Teachers Union of Hebron, 'Abdul Jawad Abu Sneineh said. "We have a legitimate right to demand an honorable life like others. How do you expect a teacher to manage with a salary of $300 per month? Let alone the fact that they deduct part of it, it's not enough for the basic requirements."
"The Palestinian Authority is practically demanding that we sell the schools and work as beggars or laborers in the Israeli settlements," he added in response to those who say the strike is politically motivated. "The strike is about food and bread which we can no longer manage to get to feed our children, it's not politics. A hungry man does not think of politics."
The committee believes that the education ministry's move to halt the retirement deduction "is only a tactic" to destroy the teacher's unity before the ministry makes another move.
Legislative Council member and head of the council's committee on public rights and human freedoms Hasan Khriesheh says, "I think this is tyranny and the rejection of teachers' rights. The Palestinian Authority is trying to prove that it has implemented the civil service law, but what is happening is that it did not implement the financial part of the law that states that Palestinian Authority must keep the financial rights of the employees."
He believes "there are senior officials in the Palestinian Authority interested in escalation and reaching a deadlock because any solution for our benefit will detriment their private interests. They claim that they are unable to fulfill the financial part."
This year's state budget indicates that there is more than one billion dollars in private revenues that are neither loans nor grants. The problem is not financial as much as administrative corruption in the establishments of the Palestinian Authority that do not take into consideration national or humanitarian issues said Khreisheh. The government has allotted the education sector a total of $166 million in its annual budget, which provides each student with $166 for the entire year to pay for salaries, books and educational resources. In comparison, the 2000 budget allots more than $400 million to the police and the security forces.
While Khreisheh and Abu Sneineh both said that some activists in the teachers strike had been arrested by the Palestinian security apparatuses while others were threatened by the Ministry of Education by terminating their services or transferring them into schools in remote areas. Ministry of Education spokesperson in Ramallah Dima al-Samman assures that, "It's all rumors without basis. None of the teachers were arrested and the ministry does not intend to blame them as they have the right to express their opinions - even though it is not the best way because it is detrimental to the educational process."
This teachers strike is not the first of its kind that took place since PA entrée to the WBGS , a similar strike took place in April 1997 when teachers demanded the PA for better ,honorable life, and in increase in their salaries. But these demands were faced with indifference and disregard.
More over, most of the teachers who were members in the higher coordination committee were arrested by the PA security forces; part of them were punished after their release by cutting down their salaries, or transferred to work in remote areas. Thats why the current committee is a secretive one.