Venezuelan university teachers demand salary improvements on the street

First modification: 03/01/2023 – 09:55

By RFI correspondent in Caracas

With protests and street activities, professors and university workers completed the first day of two days of national strike to demand salary and pension adjustments from the government of Nicolás Maduro. The protests were joined by educators of all levels as well as other workers dependent on the Venezuelan State.

The causes were ratified by the president of the Association of Professors of the Central University of Venezuela, Gregorio Afonso.

“Our salary tabulator ranges between 15 and 30 dollars, for university professors. And the government’s response has been none,” he denounced.

The information secretary of the Federation of University Professors, Keta Stephany, defended the protest, arguing that the current situation causes the desertion of educators and the decrease in student enrollment.

“What exists today and what we university students do today is a donation of time and talent to guarantee that the university does not close, that it is maintained, that it is not destroyed. But that has a limit,” he emphasized.

According to the Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict, there are some 30 protests a day in the country over salary and union demands. The organization recorded 1,137 demonstrations for these causes only in January of this year.

The minimum wage in Venezuela, by which the rest of the public administration payment scales are calculated, is 130 bolivars. It is the equivalent of 5 euros per month, at the official exchange rate.

In recent weeks the Maduro government has refused to agree to a general wage increase, even in union discussions accompanied by the International Labor Organization.