After four back-and-forth meetings lasting several hours, teachers and government reached a tentative deal to end the six-day-long strike on Sunday–just one day to the official start of the second term.
According to the official school calendar, all schools were expected to reopen for the new term on Monday, May 27. For schools that re-opened earlier, teachers didn’t walk back into the classroom until President Museveni met their leaders united under the Uganda National Teachers’ Union (Unatu) on Sunday, May 26.
The Observer has learnt that President Museveni’s meeting came as a “surprise” as many expected the minister of Education and Sports, Janet Museveni, to chair the meeting at the Office of the President conference hall.
According to a source, Unatu and officials from ministries of Finance, Education and Public Service met at least three times last week but failed to agree on anything. Teachers insisted that they had given government a 90-day ultimatum in February but it lapsed without any formal communication from the respective offices. This led to the announcement of the May 20 strike.
In all meetings, our source said, efforts by government officials to nudge teachers to call off the strike failed. After three days of a stalemate, government called its first extra-ordinary council meeting with Unatu and other union leaders at the ministry of Public Service on May 23.
“On the same day [May 23] in the afternoon, there was a meeting with the first lady and all ministers of finance and public service at State House, Nakasero. The union side comprised 40 people and government had about 20 people,” the source said. From the Nakasero meeting, it was resolved that the same group holds another meeting the following day [Friday] without the first lady.
According to our source, the meeting was meant to determine whether Unatu tells its union leaders to unanimously call off the strike or not. In this meeting, they also tabled government’s proposal urging teachers to call off the strike for two weeks to give room for more negotiations.
Having failed to agree on Friday, another meeting of a small team of Unatu leaders was called on Saturday last week in the ministry of Finance boardroom. This meeting, which started at 10am and ended at 4pm, saw the government side reiterate its two-week proposal.
In the same meeting, Unatu that seemed “convinced”, also requested to have a meeting with the president. While the Unatu team was aware that the president was out of the country, they expected to have the meeting scheduled within the two weeks.
Government also communicated that it did not have the Shs 502bn to enhance all teachers’ salaries in the second phase but Unatu insisted that Finance looks for at least 50 per cent (Shs 251bn).
“These were positions that were going to be shared in the Sunday meeting at the OPM for union leaders to agree or disagree. The meeting was called by the first lady but we got surprised when she later communicated that the president had just landed from South Africa and wants to meet them,” said the source.
TEACHERS’ DEMANDS
Initially, the Sunday meeting was meant to start at 10am till midday but was rescheduled to 2pm to allow the president address the union leaders. During his address, Museveni, instead of the two-week proposal, requested teachers to suspend the strike for the whole of the second term. He also promised to meet the same team before end of July to give a way forward, to which Unatu accepted.
Speaking to The Observer yesterday, Unatu secretary general, Filbert Baguma, said they agreed with the president because they did not want to be seen as not “listening and failing to agree” with government.
“The president is the highest office. If you can’t agree with that office, where do you refer? If we don’t get any satisfaction by July, we shall resume the strike and that will be more dangerous because it is the term that learners are doing end-of-year examinations,” Baguma said, insisting that the suspension shouldn’t be mistaken for a “call off”.
He added: “Whoever is handling our issue must bear in mind that third term is very delicate. I believe by that time, if our demands are not met, no stakeholder will blame us for going back to our industrial action.”
Asked whether the union isn’t giving teachers false hope with the suspension, Baguma said: “If you are a woman and [you get a miscarriage], it does not stop you from conceiving again? No! You give it another try but it does not stop us from continuously demanding for our rights.”
In 2017, President Museveni promised to raise salaries for science teachers, arguing that they were few and likely to seek greener pastures abroad. This led to a strike from their arts counterparts, which saw government drop the increment but sign a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with 10 labour unions to enhance salaries of all public workers on June 22, 2018.
The pay target was approved to be implemented in a phased manner over a period of five years starting from FY 2018/19. In the first phase, at least Shs 525bn was provided for nine categories of public servants.
Last week, the state minister for public service, David Karubanga said the second phase meant to be financed in the FY 2019/20 has been deliberated on but affected by other competing “critical” government priority areas like defence and security, completion of critical oil infrastructure and power stations, revival of the national airline and addressing youth employment.
This financial year 2019/20, he said government will be able to finance phase two of the enhancement to a tune of Shs 62.89bn. Of this, Shs 13.8bn and Shs 49bn has been allocated to health and education officials respectively who missed out on the first phase of the enhancement.
Unatu wants government to fulfill its promise as signed in the CBA to enhance salaries of teachers in U17 salary scale from Shs 469,000 to Shs 600,000; U6 from Shs 550, 000 to Shs 670,000; U4 from Shs 670,000 to Shs 1.1m and U5 science teachers from Shs 800,000 to Shs 1.2m.
For primary school head teachers and graduate arts teachers in U4 scale, they agreed to raise their salary from the current Shs 919,000 to Shs 1.7m while graduate science teachers in the same scale would jump from Shs 1.2m to Shs 2.2m.
Science teachers at senior level in U3 were set at Shs 2.3m from Shs 1.7m; U2 science teachers at principal level Shs 2.4m from Shs 1.8m; secondary head teachers and heads of certificate awarding institutions were both raised to Shs 2.6m from Shs 1.9m. Principals and heads of diploma awarding institutions would be the highest paid at Shs 3.1m up from Shs 2.3m.
nangonzi@observer.ug