DEC. 1, 2014
BEIJING — Strikes by thousands of teachers frustrated by low salaries and mandatory payments to pension plans have spread across cities in northeast China, state news media reported on Monday.
The strikes began last week and now encompass a half-dozen cities or counties surrounding the city of Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang Province, an area of the country where economic growth has long been relatively slow. Classes in some primary and high schools have been suspended, the reports said.
Teachers are asking for raises and for the government to end a requirement that teachers make payments to a pension plan as part of an experimental policy. China National Radio reported that one teacher was making less than $400 a month after working for 25 years. A report by Global Times, a state-run newspaper, said teachers in Yilan County held up a banner that said: “We are 4,000 Yilan teachers. Return my withheld money!”
A one-minute video posted on the video hosting site Youku said that Monday was the sixth day of protests by teachers in Yilan and showed a group of banner-waving people gathered in the snow in front of the county government offices. “Give me back my salary, give me back my dignity,” the people shouted in unison. In China, teaching has long been a profession with relatively low pay. Teachers from Yilan have posted an open letter online that says veteran educators who have worked two decades make just over $320 per month and new teachers make $160 — “even more pathetic,” according to the letter.
The authors acknowledged the hardships on students caused by the strike. They wrote, “It hurts us that kids are affected because of this. We’re profoundly sorry. Whatever we owe the kids, we’ll make up for in the future by being available all the time.”
In recent years, there have been more reports in China of strikes by people in a wide range of low-paid occupations. The labor pool of younger workers is getting smaller. Because of cheap smartphones, workers are able to share information across distances about wages, labor conditions and acts of protest. A wave of strikes in 2010 at factories in southern China brought these issues to the fore. Furthermore, the growth rate of the Chinese economy as a whole has been slowing, and salary increases for lower- and middle-class workers have lagged behind inflation in many regions.
The grievances over the teachers’ pension plan have arisen because of a pilot project undertaken by Heilongjiang Province and supported by the central government. The project, which began in 2004, is aimed at having government workers, including teachers, contribute part of their salaries to a centralized provincial pension payment plan for all citizens. Previously, government workers were exempt from making payments.
An open letter circulating online said teachers should not be forced to contribute to the pension plan. The authors of the letter, teachers in the city of Shuangcheng, west of Harbin, said teachers in Heilongjiang should be required to make the payments only if such a policy is enacted across the nation. A report in Beijing Times said that the irate teachers in Shuangcheng were from elementary and junior high schools and had begun protesting with banners in front of the government offices on Nov. 24.
