The Uganda National Teachers’ Union-UNATU is plotting a nationwide strike effective Wednesday this week, over inequitable salary increments for teachers in the education industry.
The strike will see support staff, and school administrators across all levels of education lay down their tools until further notice.
The teachers association claims the government is doing them an injustice by disregarding teachers in arts and humanities by only focusing on science teachers.As per a memorandum of understanding between the government and the science teachers,graduate science and Grade V teachers will receive Shillings 4 Million and Shillings 3 million respectively.
The above salary structure was agreed upon in commitments made in their Collective Bargaining Agreement signed back in 2018.
Filbert Baguma, the UNATU General Secretary, says the body wrote to the government on May 23,2022, expressing their intention to resume industrial action should the government insist on implementing discriminatory salary enhancements.
“Regrettably, to date, no positive response has been received from the Government. It is important to note that our Industrial Action that started in 2019 over the same issue was only suspended pending the full implementation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement,” the general secretary noted.
Baguma explains that union leaders across the country have unanimously agreed to enter into an industrial action if there is no satisfactory feedback on issues pertaining to teachers’ salary increment across the board for the financial year 2022/2023.
“Our industrial action effective 15th June 2022 will continue as planned until; Government agrees to implement the CBA without discrimination. Some categories of civil servants are already earning salaries from the same CBA. Why does the practice change when it comes to teachers?” Baguma says
According to their demands, secondary school headteachers should receive Shillings 10 million, and primary school headteachers Shillings 4.5 million.
UNATU is also pushing the government to pay Shillings 4.8 million to graduate science teachers and Shillings 4.5 million to those teaching arts and humanities. They are also advocating for a Shillings 1.35 million minimum wage for primary school teachers.
