STAY TRUE TO THE LEGACY OF RADICAL TEACHERS AND UNIONS!
SUPPORT THE 12TH FEBRUARY GENERAL STRIKE AGAINST THE UNDEMOCRATIC AND ANTI-WORKER LABOUR CODES!
Lok Shikshak Manch extends support to the call of the Central Trade Unions for the General Strike on the 12th of February against the four Labour Codes which are in the process of being implemented by the Union Government.
We find the non-democratic process of preparing, introducing and implementing these codes reason enough to reject them outrightly.
Additional grounds are provided by the deterioration in our own working conditions, as evident in the mounting non-teaching tasks assigned to teachers and the resultant non-academic characterisation of the role of teaching in public schools.
Not only has it become a national policy to outsource the recruitment of non-teaching personnel in public schools, thereby bypassing the minimal social justice and social security norms, these processes are mired in blatant corruption, not surprisingly, at the cost of the hapless and insecure workers.
Moreover, the completely ad-hoc and disruptive nature of the unending orders (exacerbated manifold by digital command and control), almost always anti-educational and demanding immediate compliance, proves a complete unfamiliarity with academics and a non-serious if not petty-instrumentalist attitude towards public institutions raised and run by the labour and resources of the people of this country.
We call upon school teachers to extend solidarity with the trade unions over the 12th February General Strike, by various means, from chalk-down to boycotting administrative work to full participation, joining protests and meetings, and educating the students, their parents and school neighbourhoods, which mostly comprise of the very same working classes at the receiving end of the labour-exploitative economy in general and the labour codes in this particular instance.
We also call upon teachers' unions all over India to extend their full support and solidarity with the toiling masses, workers and farmers in this General Strike and stay true to the legacy of radical teachers and teachers' unions in joining the struggle against the exploitative loot of labour, knowledge and natural resources, and for bringing about a just, egalitarian and truly free world.
We demand that the union and state governments
. Withdraw the Labour Codes and remove all hindrances in the way of organising Unions of teachers and other school personnel.
. Stop deputing teachers on, or assigning them, non-teaching duties and tasks. .Ensure that all subjects are taught by academically and professionally qualified teachers as per their recruitment and appointment.
. Stop the inhuman SIR work which is taking heavy toll on teachers' physical and mental health, and has even led to aggravating stress disorders and suicides. .Ensure that teachers are assigned tasks only during their working hours. Pass a worker-protection legislation on the 'right to disconnect'.
. Stop the contractualisation and outsourcing of the appointments of teachers and non-teaching personnel in schools. Ensure time-bound, regular, fair and constitutionally mandated appointments.
. Ensure that the sanctity of the time-table and annual calendar of schools is maintained. Stop disrupting schools' academic schedules and teachers' pedagogic work by imposing last-minute orders, politically motivated and shallow programs calling for urgent compliance under the threat of administrative action.
. Ensure respect for the autonomy and dignity of teachers, students and non teaching staff. Stop CCTV and biometric surveillance, non-consensual data capture, profiling and the invasion and violation of their privacy.
. Make statutory provisions to ensure teachers' freedom to study and avail necessary leaves thereof. Also ensure the protection of teachers' role and responsibility as public intellectuals to speak and write in public, within the confines of the law as applicable to University teachers.
. Ensure that no policy decision affecting teachers' working conditions is taken without consulting and gaining the trust of their elected bodies.
