Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 31) — An organization of teachers and education workers is asking the government to give teachers benefits owed them for working longer than necessary over the past months.
The Alliance of Concerned Teachers, or ACT, said teachers should be given their proportional vacation pay as they were required to work for 14 months instead of the regular 10.
“Public school teachers started working for the current school year on June 1, 2020, but with the current school year stretching up to July 2021, they are required to work for 14 months straight without a day of leave benefits,” ACT said in a statement on Wednesday.
The proportional vacation pay is a benefit given to public school teachers as a counterpart to the mandated leaves granted to other public and private sector workers. It used to be given during summer breaks, after teachers have rendered 10 months of continuous service in a school year.
“Requiring our teachers to do four months-worth of overtime work amid the pandemic and under the grueling distance learning is grave labor abuse. While our teachers are ever willing to rise to the call of duty for the sake of our learners, it is only just for the government to fairly compensate them for their service,” said ACT secretary general Raymond Basilio.
The group also sent a letter to the Department of Education on Tuesday, urging them to issue guidelines on the PVP for this school year and to “come up with measures that would bring justice to the situation.”
Basilio also said teachers were under stress as they were overworked and had “burdensome expenses” because of the distance learning setup.
“We have now reached the point where teachers are left with only three options: we fall ill, we leave the profession, or we fight. And just as we have before, we choose to fight,” Basilio added.
The DepEd has not given a statement on the issue as of Wednesday afternoon.
