Teachers from the western province of Lorestan and central province of Yazd protested while carrying signs reading, "A country with treasures and teachers living below the property line."
Teachers from the western province of Lorestan and central province of Yazd protested while carrying signs reading, "A country with treasures and teachers living below the property line."
"We hardly make 20,000 to 30,000 Tomons (roughly $20 to $30) a month," a teacher in the picket line said.
Another participant said that very few of us here today make 70,000 Tomons ($70) a month. It has been nine years that part time teachers are struggling with the mullahs' regime to be hired as full time government employees.
The full time teachers are not in better a shape either. To compete with the rising costs of the basic goods, they have to have a much higher pay grade. The ruling clerics refuse to give in to their demands.
The problem of teachers' pay surfaces at the beginning of every school year. However, the officials in mullahs' Ministry of Education pay no attention to the teachers' problems and would suppress them instead.
In February 2007, the streets ending to the Majlis were the scene of protests by more than 15,000 teachers demanding their full pay rise in accordance with the sky rocketing cost of living for the fix income families. With teachers very low pay grades, they are hardly able to cope with the cost of living.
Under the mullahs' rule, Iran’s oil-based economy is fundamentally dysfunctional. The official inflation rate is 30% and there is double-digit unemployment. Hundreds of protests, sit-ins and strikes by trade unions, teachers, and others prove beyond any doubt that the economic problems are endemic.