Federal goverment pays only 7% of the teacher’s salary

The federal government is decisively intervening on the teachers’ salaries negotiation, but provides a marginal and shrinking proportion of the remuneration. This contradiction generates the conflict, leading to the irrational situation where even provinces that have reached agreements with the unions are not beginning classes either. Instead of interfering in the wage negotiation, the federal government should support financially the provinces in order to reduce teacher absenteeism and droppouts, and to improve quality education.

The national collective bargaining carried out by the government and the five national teachers unions has failed again. The disruption in public education, that has been a constant in the last years, is repeating itself again. This time the paradox is that strikes have spread to jurisdictions that have already agreed with unions about wage increases for 2014.

The national collective bargaining was created by the Education Funding Act of 2006. Before that, each province managed its own collective bargaining, consistent with the fact that basic education is a provincial responsibility. The goal of the new national collective bargaining is to set the wage floor, funded with contributions from the national government through the Teacher Salary Compensation, in order to benefit regions with lower wages. These transfers are added to the contributions that the national government is already making to the provinces since 1998 through the National Teacher Incentive Fund (FONID).

Given the logic of this law, it’s relevant to assess the magnitude of the contribution made by the national government. Data from the Ministry of Education regarding the position of elementary teachers with simple dedication and 10 year service shows that:

·  In 17 provinces, the national states pays only FONID, which currently amounts to $225 per teacher, which represents on average, 4.5% of teachers salaries.  

·  In the 7 remaining provinces, it pays the Teacher Salary Compensation, raising the Contribution to $817 per teacher which represents 17.5% of teacher salaries.

·  Thus, the federal government pays on average only 7% of teachers salaries.   

These data shows that the federal government is responsible of a marginal proportion of teacher salaries. Therefore, it is no logical it assumes a leading role in the collective bargaining. Even more so when contributions made by the federal government are becoming more limited. In 2006, national funds covered approximately 13% of teacher’s salaries. That is, since the collective bargaining was established, the federal government’s funding was reduced to almost half.

The collective bargaining scheme adopted in 2006 has scarce technical foundation and a high demagogic content. In practice, it does not guarantee an accepted salary floor and contributes to exacerbate the conflict aggravating the degradation of the educational system. The most obvious proof is that, since 2012, negotiations fail and the federal government ends up imposing a wage floor that is rejected by the national teachers unions. Neither this scheme is useful to advance in other important issues such as to reduce the teacher absenteeism and “taxi” (multi-jobs) teachers.

Article 5 of the National Constitution is very clear in setting the mandate that the provinces are responsible for basic education. Out of respect for the law and common sense is highly recommended that the collective bargaining is dismantled. It is necessary to return to the rational scheme where each province negotiates wages and other working conditions of the teachers under its management.

The failure of the national collective bargaining does not imply that the federal government has no role to play. There are worthy intervention for it.  Instead of feeding the unrest, strikes and degradation, the federal government could financially support and attend the provinces that take effective measures in reducing dropout and repetition rates and the poor quality of teaching. In this way they could make a contribution to education without violating the National Constitution.

One particular example of how pernicious the national collective bargain is, it can be found in the (failed) intention to combat the scourge of the high teacher absenteeism. Discussing the payment for teacher presenteesim (perfect attendance) during the national collective bargaining ended up being irrelevant and exacerbated the conflict. An alternative strategy would have been to use national resources to fund provinces that effectively reduce teacher absenteeism. In this way, the national government would induce provinces- –responsible for primary and secondary education– to carry out actions that improve educational management.