ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Finance Minister Rebaz Hamlan announced Wednesday that teachers who launched a strike this week in cities across the Kurdistan region over delayed wages would be paid on Monday.
Rudaw's Sangar Abdulrahman, reporting from Kurdistan parliament, said the payment would come from the Ministry of Finance, but added that it was unclear whether all the teachers would get their entire salaries.
Hundreds of teachers took to the streets in Sulaimani and Erbil on Tuesday after declaring a week-long strike earlier this month over the delayed salaries. Representatives of the protesting teachers told Rudaw they refused to go back to work before receiving their full salaries, which have been withheld since July.
Teachers in many other cities including in Halabja and Rania showed solidarity with their colleagues and gathered in central parts of the cities to protest against the overdue wages.
“In the 1990s, teachers worked for a year without getting paid because we felt it was our duty, but now it’s really different,” another teacher told Rudaw. “We were more equal then, but now there are humiliating inequalities,” he added.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) had asked civil servants for patience and promised to pay its employees.
The KRG says the ongoing war with ISIS militants, the influx of over 1.3 million refugees and Baghdad’s freezing of the KRG budget since February last year have coupled with falling oil prices to contribute to the unprecedented crisis.
