Across Iran thousands of teachers struck against low pay and grading after the regime’s authorities repeatedly ignored pleas about their economic situation.

Thousands of teachers in different provinces, including Tehran, Alborz, Semnan, Kurdistan, Fars and West Azerbaijan went on strike and gathered to protest against their unfair treatment by the Iranian regime’s authorities.

According to sources close to the teachers and ILNA (Iranian Labour News Agency), it was reported that there were protest gatherings in Shahroud, Qazvin, Eslamshahr, Robat Karim, Shahr-e Qods, Karaj, Shahriyar, Shiraz, Shahrood, Saghez, Baneh and Marivan.

The co-ordinated strike meant that teachers were absent from classrooms on January 20 and 21. This followed teachers’ protest letters to officials in the regime’s executive and legislative branches.

In an open letter to the Iranian regime’s President on December 29, teachers said that they are tired of injustice and discrimination that “… meeting living expenses for the majority of working and retired teachers is impossible. When the dollar exchange rate went from 1200 tomans to 3500 tomans and inflation reached 45 per cent, the purchasing power of we teachers dropped by half or even a third.”

In addition to demanding a pay rise higher than the 14 per cent announced by the Education Ministry (for the New Year beginning on March 21), the teachers want their grades to be set at higher level compared to other state employees.

Iranian Workers’ Solidarity Network
27 January 2015