Dhaka University teachers declare full-day work stoppage on Jun 30 over Prottoy Scheme

The Dhaka University Teachers' Association has announced a full-day work stoppage hot on the heels of three days of half-day work suspensions.

The strike action is part of the movement demanding that the government rescind the Prottoy Scheme, which introduces a universal pension system, reports bdnews24.com. 

The full-day protest programme will be held on Sunday, but the university’s examinations and emergency meetings will be out of the purview of the action.

The association’s President Md Nizamul Hoque Bhuiyan made the announcement during a sit-in programme at the entrance to Dhaka University’s Arts Building on Thursday.

He said the association is staging a sit-in protest as part of its series of programmes to meet their “reasonable demand.”

“We will launch a comprehensive work abstention from Jul 1 if our demands are not met. No classes or exams will take place that day. The protest will continue until the demand is met.”

Bhuiyan, who is also secretary general of the Federation of Bangladesh University Teachers' Association, or FBUTA, said the programme will be held at all public universities across the country.

Earlier, the teachers staged half-day work stoppages from 8am-1pm for three straight days from Tuesday. They also held sit-in programmes at the main entrance of the Arts Building for an hour every day during these days.

The teachers are asking authorities to keep public universities out of the universal pension’s Prottoy Scheme over the past month.

The teachers are also demanding the restoration of the previous pension system, the inclusion of university professors in the super grade, and a distinct pay scale for them.

The finance ministry introduced a new package called the Prottoy Scheme in addition to the four schemes of the Universal Pension Scheme.

According to this new scheme, all types of autonomous, semi-autonomous, state-owned, statutory, or similar organisations and their subsidiaries will be included in the universal pension system if they join after Jul 1, 2024.

The association claims that the scheme is discriminatory and it will cause economic and social disparities between those who started their jobs before and after Jul 1.