PANI Minister Blasts Teachers' Strike
By Fabián Borges
Tico Times Staff

As thousands of teachers marched through San José to the Casa Presidencial yesterday to protest pension problems, Child Welfare Minister Rosalia Gil met with the press inside the Casa Presidencial and criticized the teachers' unions for putting their personal interests ahead of the rights of the country's children.

The teachers' strike began last month in protest of payment irregularities, and later shifted focus to pension problems. The strike forced embattled Education Minster Astrid Fischel to resign her post at the beginning of the month. Last Thursday, Fischel's vacated post was filled by Manuel Antonio Bolaños, who earlier served as Vice-Minister of the Environment (TT May 16, 23, 30; June 6, 13)

"I am deeply worried by the strike and how it is affecting the country's children," Gil said. "This strike is illegal. It is denying children their basic right to an education and is in clear violation of the International Children's Rights Convention, which Costa Rica has ratified.

"As Child Welfare Minister, I am demanding that teachers do what is expected of them and return to the classrooms," she added.

Gil urged teachers to consider the damage they are causing the country and criticized the strike as "illegitimate," claiming that only a small fraction of the country's 50,000 teachers are supporting it. Vice-Minister of Education Wilfirdo Blanco made similar claims last week, downplaying support for the strike by insisting that only "40%" of the teachers were still striking.

The following day, some 15,000 educators took to the streets in what was the teachers' strongest show of force to date.

President Abel Pacheco also demanded an end to the strike, insisting the government has met all eight of the teachers' original demands.

"During the last payday, only nine cases of teachers not receiving their salaries were reported and we addressed them immediately," he explained. "We also solved the funding problems for school lunch programs and rural area busing for students. They [the teachers] also asked us to eliminate a bill aimed at giving municipalities more control over local schools, and we complied.

"It seems some teachers don't really know what they are fighting for," Pacheco added. "They don't understand that the old pension system they wish to reinstate would benefit only 8,000 teachers who would receive $75 million among them. This would bankrupt the system and leave no money for new teachers."

Minister of the Presidency Ricardo Toledo repeated that the pension problem is in the hands of the courts, not the Executive Branch. He called on teachers to go back to work until the judge rules on the situation.

"We can negotiate all we want, but that won't get us any closer to solving the problem," he said. "The real problem is students still aren't being allowed to go to school and receive an education."