{"id":39133,"date":"2019-04-26T04:22:31","date_gmt":"2019-04-26T04:22:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=39133"},"modified":"2019-04-26T04:22:31","modified_gmt":"2019-04-26T04:22:31","slug":"morocco-announces-wage-deal-as-teachers-protests-continue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=39133","title":{"rendered":"Morocco announces wage deal as teachers&#8217; protests continue"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"body-200771816342556199\" readability=\"109\">\n<p class=\"speakable\">The Moroccan government has announced a &#8220;new social deal&#8221; with employers and the main labour unions, under which many workers will enjoy a pay rise.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">The deal agreed by the General Confederation of Moroccan Businesses (CGEM) and the three main unions &#8211; the UMT, UGTM and UNMT &#8211; on Thursday will see the minimum monthly wage, currently 2,570 dirhams ($266), increased by 10 percent over two years from July, except for the agricultural sector.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">Public sector workers will be given a 300-500 dirham monthly pay increase over three years.<\/p>\n<p>According to the government statement, the deal is aimed at &#8220;improving spending power and the social climate&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The north African country has been hit by protests over employment and corruption.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The social unrest began in October 2016 after the death of a fisherman and spiralled into a wave of protests demanding more development in the neglected Rif region and railing against corruption and unemployment.<\/p>\n<p>Morocco is marked by glaring social and territorial inequalities, against a backdrop of high unemployment among young people. In 2018, it was ranked 123rd out of 189 countries and territories on the Human Development Index.<\/p>\n<p>The government move came as Moroccan police used water cannons to disperse a protest by thousands of young teachers in the capital Rabat, striking\u00a0<span>to demand permanent jobs that offer civil service benefits, including a better retirement pension.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Around 65 protesters were injured on Thursday, said Abdelwahab Ghallat, one of the organisers.<\/p>\n<p>The protesters arrived from several parts of the country and tried to camp out in front of parliament until police dispersed then, witnesses said.<\/p>\n<p>Education Minister Said Amzazi has threatened to sack teachers if they do not return to classrooms, saying the strike has affected seven percent of Morocco\u2019s seven million students.<\/p>\n<p>Some 55,000 teachers out of 240,000 in total have been hired on renewable contracts by regional education delegations since 2016 to address overcrowding in rural classrooms.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Moroccan government has announced a &#8220;new social deal&#8221; with employers and the main labour unions, under which many workers will enjoy a pay rise. The deal agreed by the General Confederation of Moroccan Businesses (CGEM) and the three main unions &#8211; the UMT, UGTM and UNMT &#8211; on Thursday will see the minimum monthly&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":39134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}