Teachers strike in Chengdu

By Huang Zhiling and Wang Wei (China Daily Sichuan Bureau)
Updated: 2009-11-09 13:45

When news of the strike spread to the Chengdu Experimental Foreign Languages School, some 250 teachers there started their own strike at around 3 pm on Thursday.

Authorities for the school called the parents of its 5,000 students Thursday afternoon, telling them to pick up their children and take them home, as the school would be closed until next Monday to prevent an outbreak of the H1N1 flu.

But when parents arrived, they found the real reason was because all the school's teachers had gone on strike to support their counterparts.

"The school asked our parents to take us home for the sake of H1NI flu prevention," said a fourth grader surnamed Li.

Li, a native of Chengdu, returned home that evening but came back to the school with a dozen schoolmates the next morning to support their teachers, who sat on the square inside the school gate the whole day.

Since the Chengdu Experimental Foreign Languages School, a former State-owned school, became a private one in 2002, teachers have not had a pay increase despite their repeated requests, Li said.

"Even the best teacher there earns only 2,500 yuan ($368) a month, which is the pay plus the bonus," Li told China Daily.

The teachers' working conditions are awful as their offices are in a makeshift house on the sixth floor of a school building.

"When we step into it, we feel it is trembling," said Wang, another fourth grader.

Despite the poor treatment, teachers are nice to students and work very hard, Wang said. The school has had six top liberal arts scorers in the city in the past decade, the 15-year-old added.

The students joined in the protest not only because the teachers are kind but also because of their own deplorable treatment, according to Li.

They pay 500 yuan ($74) for 20 days of eating in the canteen each month. The food is substandard and Li found parts of a cockroach in her food on Thursday, she said.

Anything sold in the school's store is more expensive than outside, Li added.

Each year, the school only allows students to turn on air-conditioners in their dorms a few times. Dead rats have been found on air-conditioners in classrooms, Wang said.

Students used to pay a yearly fee of 15,000 yuan "to build the school" but it has risen to 20,000 yuan.

School authorities said the increase of 5,000 yuan will be used to increase teachers' wages, but the salaries have never been increased, Wang said.

For fear of persecution, the students did not give their full names and few teachers wanted to be interviewed as police guarded the gate to the school.

Police forced journalists who took pictures outside the gate to delete the pictures of teachers demonstrating. Almost no journalists from local media units covered the event.

Both schools have asked teachers to resume work on Sunday so that they can start teaching the next day. But none of the teachers have promised to return as no deal has been made between them and the Derui Group.

Teachers in both schools have sent a letter of apology to the students and their families and vow to make up the missing lessons free of charge.

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