Venezuelan teachers remain in the streets to demand living wages

First modification: 02/17/2023 – 14:05

Sandra Laya has a postgraduate degree in education and has been teaching for 15 years. Her salary does not reach 20 dollars in a country where the basic basket is around 500. To obtain more money, she teaches private classes in a makeshift school in a neighborhood in eastern Caracas. Additionally, on weekends she is a tourist guide for those who want to visit Ávila, the lungs of the capital.

“What does a teacher do to survive? A trade. Really and sadly at the same time. We study to have a better quality of life, a profession. Now selling ice cream, sewing, hairdressing is what gives a teacher to cover some needs, not all “he told France 24.

Sandra makes it clear that she does not want to leave the classroom, but the situation is untenable. “We like to teach, but how do we teach if we don’t have a ticket, we don’t have a wardrobe, we don’t have shoes, nothing covers us anymore, we prefer to protest so that everyone who passes through here knows our situation,” he told France 24 in the middle of a chain that the teachers made to attract the attention of the Executive.

“There is no way that salary increases are above inflation”

For the economist and professor at IESA, José Manuel Puente, the demands of public workers are reasonable, but he warns that in practice it is not possible to index the minimum wage to the cost of the basic food basket.

“The Revolution bankrupted the Venezuelan State and it does not have the financial capacity to be able to assume that increase. The only way for real wages to increase sustainably is for there to be an increase in productivity and also for you to control inflation. As long as you have inflation of 440%, there is no way that salary increases are above inflation”, explains Puente.

Leading the protests by educators, joined by unions from the health and transportation sectors, has been Elsa Castillo, a union leader with 30 years of service. Despite suffering the siege and persecution by the State intelligence bodies, he has traveled the entire country joining forces to continue the protest: “The hardest event was when they got us out of a car, which I denounced in his opportunity, in August, when they got us out of a car at gunpoint and threatened us”.

In the midst of the massive protests, the National Assembly chaired by Jorge Rodríguez approved a law that would allow high school graduates to practice as teachers instead of teachers, which has led to the rejection of the union. Meanwhile, the government of Nicolás Maduro continues without responding to the workers, who are running out of patience.