Excluded non-academics embark on strike over salaries

Non-teaching staff at Sudan’s 36 public universities are embarking on a strike from 12 May after being excluded from a new salary structure for academic staff.

The new salary structure for academics was the result of several months of negotiation and dialogue with the concerned authorities, but also led to protest action and strikes led by the academic communities of the Sudanese public universities.

The new structure allows for a professor’s salary of 500,800 Sudanese pounds per month (US$1,105,32), while an associate professor would earn 459,486 pounds.

The lowest salary for teaching staff at universities would be that of a teaching assistant, being 132,869 pounds (US$293.17), according to Sudan’s Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research.

Following the announcement of the new salaries, the academic community at public universities conditionally suspended their strike, but non-academic employees criticised their exclusion and announced escalated reaction if their demands are not met.

The Committee of Staff members of Sudanese Universities (CSMSU) said in a statement on 7 May that the new structure was “a historical achievement” and “a step in the right direction” that would counter the country’s loss of qualified people to other countries, but also that it was “reluctantly accepted”.

The suspension of the strike is subject to certain conditions, such as retroactive payment of arrears.

“We will follow up very carefully with the authorities concerned to implement the above demands, and, in case of intransigence, the strike will be called again,” the CSMSU statement notes.

Non-academic workers respond

The executive office of the Gathering of Government University Employees (GGUE) indicated in a statement on 11 May that they have received a response from the ministry after its proposed changes to the structure were handed to the ministry.

According to the GGUE, the ministry said it would reply on 15 May.

GGUE issued an escalation schedule which showed that the first strike will be on 12 May, followed by two days on 16-17 May, then another three days from 22-24 May and, finally, two more days of strike on 28 May and 2 June.

In solidarity with non-academic workers, the Sudanese Association of Professionals and Professors of Imam Mahdi University (APPIMU) upheld the rights of technicians and workers at public universities.

“Academic members of universities, who represent only a third of the workers in higher education, are not the only ones who manage the work at universities,” an APPIMU statement said.

“We are certain that the stability of universities can only be achieved with fairness to all workers in higher education, and it would have been possible had it not been for ignoring the decision of the former minister, which stipulates improving the wages of non-academic workers in universities in conjunction with the salary structure of professors.”

Ministry response

The ministry said in statement on 3 May that “in reference to the injustice felt by some non-academic cadres at institutions of higher education and scientific research” the new salary structure for faculty members at public universities was implemented because these employees “are exempted from the Civil Service Law since 2007, just like other categories such as judges, consultants and others, due to the different conditions of service and competencies of these categories from the rest of the state’s workers”.

However, the GGUE later complained that they went to the ministry on 8 May to deliver their demands, but that no employees of the ministerial office were available to receive them.

GGUE also posted photos on its Facebook official page of their visit to the ministry’s buildings.

This news report was updated on 12 May 2022.