2022-05-17

WESTBANK

position paper

The Security Approach and Fighting the Livelihood Only Deepens the Crisis and Does Not Help in Resolving It.

News circulated on social media platforms that the government is planning to deduct the teachers’ salaries, despite being modest salaries, claiming that their strike is an act of absenteeing from work, even though their strike is a legitimate union struggle in defense of their union and living demands to protects their dignity, social status, mission and their educational role in building and establishing the Palestinian students, considering that they are the real wealth of this nation and the tool to protect the national identity and promote the principles of sustainable development of their people. Therefore, the teachers are subjected to what the government calls “procedures and administrative punishments” and it chose the harshest of them all which are salary deductions, transfer threats, forced retirement or the replacement of teachers with service providers.

Social media websites have pointed to the government’s continuance to ignore teachers’ legitimate demands, which stem from constitutional rights protected by article (26) of the Basic Law and the Declaration of Independence before it. Both have guaranteed Palestinians, without distinction, their right to participate in politics, as individuals and groups, and they have the right to establish unions, organizations, connections, clubs, and grass-roots institutions as per the law. They are also guaranteed the right to vote, run for elections, elect their representatives by public vote according to the law, and have the right to assume public positions through equal opportunities. This disregard that limits the crisis to the wage increase demand, that the government cannot even fulfill, and intentionally neglecting their right to form their professional, independent, democratic syndicate that is founded on the right to choose leaders that are qualified to express the teachers’ interests, demands and reach fair common grounds with the government regarding their rights, work and living demands.

We deem the government’s decisions and use of salary deduction and other forms of punishment, as well as disregarding the teachers’ right to form a syndicate based on the will of its members, is a representation of the government’s continuance to use the forced security approach in dealing with the citizens’ rights in all sectors of the country. This also neglects all the economic and social rights guaranteed by the Basic Law, especially in vital fields such as education, health, and agriculture. This is to allocate a large percentage of the budget for the benefit of the security agencies which causing huge financial burdens to The Public Treasury, as per the budget approved by the government for this year.

Treating the General Union of Palestinian Teachers as a grass-roots organization for the PLA as a part of PLO’s institutions and as a union for the Palestinian teachers in both Palestine and the diaspora, when in fact it is more closely tied in its tasks to the general political and national dimensions entrusted to the PLA. It should not confused with the teachers’ demands to form a teachers’ syndicate focused on the rights of teachers specifically in Palestine, that works to defend their rights and ensure their ability to carry out their mission, same as the lawyers, doctors and, engineers. Therefore, it is important to note that the teachers do not wish to substitute or compete with the General Union of Palestinian Teachers that follows the PLO institutions system. Moreover, depriving teachers of their syndicate on the grounds that it conflicts with the existence of the Union contradicts reality, and truth, and goes beyond the jurisdiction of both. This shows that using it is nothing more but a flimsy excuse to subjugate the teachers to the goverment’s policies.

We, as a civil monitoring body that is biased towards constitutional rights, consider education as “a make or break” tool that would lead to either the success or failure of a system, for it depends on the commitment of the system to enable the teachers to carry out their mission, and the failure of this is on the government. We also deem the adoption of the security approach and repressive measures against the security and livelihood of teachers and depriving them of their ability to express their will, despite the fact that this approach has been proven to be a failure in many systems throughout history as it is the most evident expression of the policy of collapse that directly contradicts the supreme national interest.

Therefore, we consider the solution to be the following:

- The government’s acknowledgment of the teachers’ right to form an independent, democratic syndicate that chooses its leaders according to the will of its general assembly. This acknowledgment represents the practical aspect of finding an end to this crisis, provided that the government immediately fulfills this.

- The government’s acknowledgment of the teachers’ right to livelihood, and the agreement with the elected syndicate on ways to achieve this in fixed periods.

- The cancellation of unconstitutional “punitive” measures taken against teachers due to their participation in the legitimate strike, and in the forefront of these measures are the salary deductions, transfer threats, forced retirement

- The abandonment of the government’s attempts to find replacements for teachers, as these attempts disregard and undermine the vital role of teachers in raising future generations.

We hereby announce our willingness for a positive intervention to guarantee that the government immediately fulfills the aforementioned requirements, and ensure the teachers acceptance of it, and therefore emphasizing the principles and values we have learned from a very young age that are put into words by the poet “Rise for your teacher and honor his rank, for a teacher is almost a prophet”.

17/05/2022

MUSAWA