iNews. co.cr Opinion: The hard line taken by the Magisterio Nacional, the overall teachers organization made up of 10 unions Wednesday had an unexpected result: The meeting Thursday morning to plan the next moves in the three week long strike revealed definite fault lines in the organization.
The Magisterio rejected completely an accord hammered out in talks between the Ministry of Education and some of the unions. The Thursday morning meeting was to analyze, point by point, the proposals of that accord.
For Ana Doris Gonzalez, head of the high school teachers union APSE, the idea of even re-examining the document represented “disrespect” for the Magisterio decision, La Nacion reported. This clashes with the opinion of teacher union ANDE chief Gilberto Cascante.
Cascante called the Magisterio decision “a definite mistake.” The colleagues know that the negotiations made during the late hours of night affect procedure so we should not be ashamed to say that the error we committee yesterday (Wednesday) we are rectifying today (Thursday),” said Cascante.
This “rectification” would entail re-submitting alterations in the original Tuesday agreement arrived at in the meeting between Minister of Education Sonia Marta Mora and teacher representatives. The Magisterio rejection of the document caused Mora to take a hard line with the teachers, saying she’d talk no more until they returned to the classroom.
Much like the failed rollout of the computer pages of the U.S. universal heath stystem in the United States, the strike was caused by a computer glitch that prevented teachers and administrators friom receiving their full paycheck. Since the teachers’ original patience with this problem evaporated, a sprit of vengence has invaded their movement.
For some union leaders, the heady sense that their actions have impacted thousands of households in the nation has led them into a reluctance to end the strike. Lost in this power play is the well being of students who need their education to compete for future jobs. (See previous article.)
Cascante, a lone voice of reason in this snarl, is pleading with both the Magisterio and the Ministry to resume talks and create a document both sides can live with. He appeared before the press accompanied by Gilberth Diaz–but with the obvious absence of the APSE chief.
Both Diaz and Cascante initially denied a split existed but Gonzalez admitted privately that she was upset with the Thursday meeting.
But the Finance Ministry, whose technicians have been working feverishly with those of the education Ministry to fix the computer problem, said that teachers have an average of some 55% of their pay deducted for automatic, whether taxes, Social Security, house payments, payments on past loans or whatever.
So insistence that receiving only part of their salaries is a hardship for Education Ministry employees is easy to understand. That means, under the best of conditions, La Nacion pointed out, that the teachers receive only 4.4 colones out of every 10 colones earned. Anything that cuts into their pay is a blow.
The crunch comes especially with the 3,600 school staff receiving only about 10,00 colones per month, mostly made up of maintenance personnel. Not far behind in the pinch are those 2,200 getting from 10,000 to and 20,000 monthly salary.
Then come those 6,000 receiving between 20,000 and 50,000 colones and finally those 11,000 receiving between 50,000 and 100,000 colones, mostly top administrators. But though they may feel less impoverished from receiving part salary, they are more likely to have incurred heavier responsibilities.
But, despite the strike, a few teachers are trickling back into the classroom in defiance of the unions. A few, mostly in one-teacher schools in rural areas never left the classroom in the first place, La Nacion reported. Westfalia (Limon province) teacher Mileidy Munoz refused to abandon her 16 students, for example.
Article by iNews.co.cr, reposted with permission
To understand this situation, it would be helpful to know the terms of the agreement that was reached and what objection the magistrate had to it. If the parties in the disagreement came to a solution, it seems strange for the magistrate to object to it.
As someone who has not held a job in Costa Rica, I really don’t follow the discussion above regarding the 45% deducted from the teachers’ pay. Are they having more deducted from their checks than should be deducted, or do the teachers merely want to receive the full amount and pay what they owe (or not) at their own discretion?
This situation needs to end soon. The citizens are losing sympathy with the teachers who appear more concerned about themselves than in the interests of the nation’s children. As I have written before, the teachers should go back to work and give this new administration a reasonable amount of time to correct the problem, and, if the government hasn’t met that deadline, go back on strike. They should know that it is simply impossible reach an overnight solution to a problem involving so many people. Since Costa Rican law requires a specific number of days of school classes, any resolution should require the teachers make up the days missed, even though it would cut into their vacation time, even if it means resuming this year’s classes after Christmas.