Gothenburg school pupils strike against job cuts

The teacher union´s (Lärarförbundet) representative Stratos Ayassotelis says incredibly enough that the teachers do not support the strike and that they´ve been spending the day calling parents encouraging them to send their kids to school claiming that school attending is compulsory in Sweden.

Parents have said that their children have the right to a good education which is impossible without a sufficient amount of teachers. One parent said “ We do this as a reaction against local politicians. Now teachers are calling us talking about `compulsory school attending`. But are we the only ones with obligations? Doesn’t the school have an obligation to give our children a good education?”

When media showed up municipality bureaucrats tried to play down the issue, saying that there had been a “misunderstanding” and only eight positions where to disappear.

One can suppose that the municipality leadership fears a situation similar to the one in 2002 when a school strike spread all over the suburb, finally involving 1900 students protesting against the dismissal of 20 teachers.

According to figures published by Swedish National Television (SVT) 1100 teachers have been sacked this year. Facing these redundancies it´s hard to know how long the teachers union can maintain their non-combative stance and even attacking those who support teachers´ interests. Meanwhile parents and pupils in Biskopsgården are preparing further actions, one of those being a demonstration on the 30th of March.

Redundancies among teachers have all ready been carried out in the suburb Gunnared, where teachers organized a protest march. One teacher that we spoke to said “We are really pissed of about this situation; this is a poor area where there is much need for the teachers we got. If the kids won´t burn down the school I think we might do it”