More than 1,000 teachers demonstrate this Thursday in Liège. They denounce their working conditions, their salary but also the new way of evaluating them in class. “You have to be aware that the school is first and foremost made by the teachers, in difficult conditions. And sometimes they remind us of the need to be considered and respected“, believes Marie-Hélène Ska.
One of the main fears of the teachers is the new evaluation in the classes desired by Caroline Désir (PS). “They are not against being evaluated, but they have a lot of questions about who and how”, says the secretary general. “It’s complicated to evaluate because each child does not come to school with the same expectations. It is therefore legitimate to wonder on what basis they will be evaluated..”
Another recurring problem denounced by teachers: the lack of arms in teaching. “It is more and more difficult for a teacher to enter the profession because he finds himself faced with increasingly complex situations to manage, he is more and more alone in his class. There is also a lack of teachers because learning is increasingly discontinuous. It is time to do something if we want the citizens of tomorrow to be properly trained.”
Despite all these difficulties, the salary does not follow according to the trade unionist. “Today teachers are not paid to travel from one school to another, nor are their travel expenses to get to school with their car reimbursed. It’s things like that that don’t are more normal in 2022“.
“There is a very simple answer to the rise in fuel prices”
Rising fuel prices – which are likely to increase further if the European Union embargo on Russian oil comes into force – have a direct impact on Belgians’ wallets. Should the federal government take more measures to protect the purchasing power of Belgians?
According to Marie-Hélène Ska, there is a very simple measure to deal with this price increase. “The Central Council of the Economy has shown us that 20% of workers in the private sector today do not benefit from any reimbursement of their travel expenses to get to work. In other words, it means hundreds of thousands of women and men have to pay to get to work. The most urgent action to take is to put an end to this situation.“.
Two weights, two measures
More generally, Marie-Hélène Ska believes that there needs to be fairer taxation in Belgium. For the CSC, this notably involves a tax for the richest. “We say to the government, chick, table texts in Parliament, mark your agreement on the fact of globalizing the incomes and better knowing the heritages of each other. If you want to contribute all income, you need to know them“, she launches.
It also criticizes the “double standard” existing between the richest and the most affluent. “The water and energy bills of people on unemployment benefit can be analyzed to see what their family composition is and how they live. On the other hand, if you have a significant heritage, you are opposed to respect for privacy. This double standard today is no longer acceptable”.
Another regulation in the viewfinder of the CSC: the law of 1996 which marks the salary increase with the automatic indexation of salaries. A wage margin was introduced in 2017 by the Michel government in order to negotiate sector by sector. The Christian union asks to be able to negotiate freely for all sectors.
“Today we lack hands in many sectors“, recalls Marie-Hélène Ska. “In a liberal economy, the law of supply and demand must be able to apply. Wages must be able to increase if there is a lack of manpower. Today it is not possible, because we have the impression of being in a communist regime where wages are completely frozen while dividends are completely liberalized and there are no beacons on the profits that are made by the companies and their investment rates. We think there is no reason to have some sort of maximum salary cap when no other source of income has this treatment.“.