Demanding Higher Pay, Iran Teachers Continue Strikes And Protests
Thousands of teachers staged another round of nationwide protests Saturday to demand higher salaries and the release of colleagues arrested in previous rallies.
Thousands of teachers staged another round of nationwide protests Saturday to demand higher salaries and the release of colleagues arrested in previous rallies.
The demonstrations were held in at least 100 cities and towns, while teachers have announced their rallies and strikes will continue until Thursday, the end of the week in Iran.
According to Teachers’ Trade Associations, which organized the protests, security forces “attacked” a rally in the city of Karaj, beating teachers and arrested 15 (video) Videos posted on social media show crowds shouting slogans against unfulfilled promises by the authorities and asking for an imprisoned teacher to be freed. “From Tehran to Khorasan; Teachers are in prisons,” they chanted.
As in earlier protests, teachers gathered in front of the parliament building in Tehran and the provincial offices of the education ministry, protesting against ministry directives asking principals to warn teachers not to leave work to take part in protests and sit-ins.
Two years of deep recession in Iran following the introduction of United States ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions in 2018 led to sharp increases in living costs and to labor unrest. According to social media posts, officials in the labor ministry also held a protest Saturday. In January hundreds of firefighters and staff from the judiciary took to the streets in several cities. Prison guards have also picketed to protest their salaries.
Some observers have expressed concern that the disappointing performance of Iran's 11th parliament (Majles) since the 1979 revolution might lead to another record voter low turnout in 2024. The parliament's performance already led to an extremely low turnout in the 2020 by-election.
Nearly under every social media post about the parliament, users point out that lawmakers have broken their promise of making the voting process in the parliament transparent. In early November, the parliament rejected a bill that called for open voting and a renewed push in February was supported by only 66 of the 290 lawmakers. However, the Majles might approve the bill towards the end of its term only to leave it as an annoying legacy for the next Majles.
While the current Majles started its work with criticism of the Rouhani administration's economic performance, it has not yet approved any bill meant to bring about improvement in Iran's ailing economy. Majles speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said in a rare admission in October, “We could not accomplish anything,” and added, “We were not able to work correctly.”
Meanwhile, in July 2021, Khabar Online, a leading news website in Tehran characterized the current Majles as a "minority parliament" that should avoid provocative legislation opposed by most Iranians. The website noted that the ultra-conservative parliament has already annoyed a major part of the population by considering a bill to limit citizens’ access to the Internet and opposing a long-awaited salary increase for the country's low-paid teachers who have been taking to the streets in recent months.
Khabar Online also said that 38 lawmakers at the Majles had won between 2 to 10 percent of the votes in their constituencies, when they got elected in February 2020. Two members won around 2 percent of the votes in their districts, while at least 3 lawmakers in this group chair various parliamentary committees despite their less than 10 percent voter base.
While at times the Majles joined other critics to lash out at the Raisi administration for nepotism and giving big jobs to small men with no merits, it turned out in November that some of the insiders who got the big jobs were the relatives of lawmakers.
The parliament has also been harshly criticized for not objecting to the appointment of IRGC generals as state officials or allowing them to run for President.
The Majles has also been criticized by the press for not being able to carry out its supervisory role. A group of lawmakers tabled motions during the past months to impeach several ministers including the ministers of labor, industry and health for breaking laws and shortcomings in their performance, but each time, the Majles Presidium refused to officially acknowledge the call for impeachment.
Based on what the Majles has done or failed to do during the past two years, some Iranian media outlets, including the moderate Rouydad24, have said that many of the current lawmakers might find it hard to convince Iranian voters to vote for them in 2024 when the turnout is likely to be even lower than in 2020.
The parliament’s record of coordination with the government has also been criticized. While most commentators in Iran believed that a hardliner Majles would work well with the ultraconservative government of Ebrahim Raisi, the first signs of a rift between the two emerged in late February as the parliament disagreed with key parts of the government's budget bill.
