PAY STRUCTURE DISPARITIES : Work abstention by teachers, officers continue for 3rd day

Indefinite strike enforced by teachers for removal of disparities from the new pay structure continued for the third consecutive day on Wednesday, paralysing academic activities at 37 public universities of the country.
Continued work abstention by over 4.30 lakh officers for two hours from noon also hampered routine activities at government establishments, including hospitals and colleges, in the simultaneous protests that began on Monday.
University teachers’ strike kept 1.8 lakh students off the classrooms. Teachers at several universities, however, took scheduled semester final exams.
Restoration of time-scales and selection grade, which facilitates moving onto higher scales or grades of pay, is a demand common among all protesting groups.
Removal of inter-cadre disparity is another major demand of the cadre service officers.
Protesting government officers include engineers, doctors, agriculturists, as well as the members of 26 of the 28 cadres of Bangladesh Civil Service.
Classes were abandoned for two hours at 320 government colleges as members of BCS education cadre skipped work as usual on Wednesday, affecting abput 13 lakh students across the country.
‘We believe that the problem can be solved immediately if the prime minister sits with us,’ said Federation of Bangladesh University Teachers Associations secretary general Maksud Kamal while talking to journalists at Dhaka University on Wednesday.
‘We don’t want to continue our movement harming the students…We want to go back to our classes,’ said federation president Farid Uddin Ahmed.
Responding to how long they were planning to continue their strike, he said, ‘The ball is in the government’s court.’
All the groups, including professionals and officials, felt aggrieved over the disparities created by the new pay structure denying them of their existing benefits and choking their future opportunities and prospects in the services.
‘We will continue week-long protests if our demands are not met…Aggrieved officers and the three professional groups are also wearing black badges while attending offices during the protests,’ said Md Firoz Khan, member-secretary of the steering committee formed by the four groups.
The professional groups and the BCS Coordination Committee that represent all cadres, but the administration and the foreign service, began protests in October 2015.
Their seven-point demands also include removal of disparities between cadre and non-cadre services.
About 3.5 lakh non-cadre Class I and Class II officers abstained from work from noon on Wednesday for the third day in protest at the new pay scale that ‘undermined’ their status, said protesting officers.
Cadre officers’ entry level has been upgraded to Grade VIII from the existing IX while the entry level for Class I non-cadre officers, including engineers and researchers, remains at Grade IX as per the eighth pay scale.

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