Primary School Teachers Threaten Strike Over New Minimum Wage


Primary school teachers in Enugu State are now warming up for strike over nonpayment of the #30,000 new minimum wage.

The teachers threatened to embark on strike following the payment of their February salaries with the old rate on Tuesday.

School headmasters were said to have prepared the February salaries based on the new minimum wage but the vouchers were rejected by the state government which claimed that the vouchers over bloated.

The headmasters were ordered to prepare fresh vouchers with the old rate before they were paid Tuesday. They were also said to have prepared their March vouchers based on the old #18,000 minimum wage.

However, the teachers in Enugu East would meet in Amagunze on Thursday, March 19, 2020, for instructions on when to start their 21 days warning strike even as their counterparts in Enugu North Senatorial zones met at their various local government headquarters Wednesday, March 18, for their own briefyings.

Primary school teachers in Igbo Eze North Local Government Area of Enugu State met at Ogrute like their counterparts in other parts of Enugu North on Wednesday, March 18, 2020, for briefing on the planned strike.

A headmaster who spoke to Southeast Post regretted the situation whereby teachers were being discriminated against through nonpayment of salaries and other entitlements in the state. 

"Retired primary school teachers are being owed pension and gratuities. In the last 17 years, no retied primary school teacher has been paid his pension while families of dead ones are not paid benefits of their former

 breadwinners in the last 17 years. Retired primary school teachers are owed 13 months pensions as they were paid last in February 2019.

However, the Chairman of Enugu State Universal Basic Education Board, ENSUBEB, Chief Ikeje Asogwa, said in an earlier interview that primary school teachers and local government workers were not staff of the state government but those of their local governments.

He said that the state government was not owing any of its civil servants as it was paying its staff including secondary school teachers all their salaries and other entitlements promptly.