Governments Must Not Use the Withholding of Salaries as a Weapon Against Teachers

WHEREAS, education systems around the world depend on qualified and justly compensated teachers in order to guarantee the fundamental right to education for all students; and

WHEREAS, teachers are among the most visible and respected members of civil society, playing leading roles in citizenship building, and social movements advocating for human rights, and high-quality public education; and

WHEREAS, authoritarian governments have delayed, reduced or withheld teachers’ salaries during political and labor conflicts, using educators’ compensation as a weapon to put pressure on teachers unions and public sector workers. Consider:

• In the Palestinian territories, because of Isreal’s withholding of tax revenues, public sector workers, including teachers, receive only a portion of their salaries, leading to major disruptions affecting more than 50,000 teachers and hundreds of thousands of students; classes have been reduced to three days per week in many places;
• In several African countries, including Nigeria and Zimbabwe, teachers have repeatedly gone on strike over months of unpaid wages and salary arrears, resulting in school closures and losses in the teaching profession; specifically, in Nigeria, where the public education system employs more than 570,000 teachers, several states have reported salary arrears of four to 14 months, triggering strikes that have closed schools for months, while in Zimbabwe, pay disputes have led to work stoppages involving more than 135,000 teachers—nearly the entire public school workforce—leaving many schools unable to operate;
• In Latin America, in El Salvador, following the October 2024 “White March” in defense of public sector labor rights, unions reported at least 60 teachers, healthcare workers, and public employees dismissed within days of the protest; and
• In Asia, teachers in countries, including India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan have mobilized in large numbers to protest delayed salary payments; in India, protests have involved more than 20,000 teachers over salary arrears; in Sri Lanka, a nationwide strike mobilized over 200,000 teachers and principals for nearly 100 days; and in Pakistan, around 20,000 teachers in 4,300 schools have reported months of unpaid salaries; and

WHEREAS, these examples and others reveal a troubling global pattern where teacher salaries become vulnerable during political conflicts, exposing educators to economic insecurity and undermining the stability of education systems; and

WHEREAS, when governments refuse to pay teachers as retaliation for union activity, or withhold wages to pressure unions during a dispute, or refuse collectively bargained salary agreements, they threaten fundamental labor rights and signed Conventions of the International Labor Organization; and

WHEREAS, Education International created a report in 2025 titled “Teacher Compensation in Crisis Contexts: Challenges in the Occupied Palestinian Territories” that is a comprehensive collection of evidence showing the primary factors contributing to irregular salary disbursements in Palestine during emergencies, identifies potential interventions to address the issue, and evaluates the consequences of financial instability on education quality:

RESOLVED, that the AFT will work with Education International in its continuing efforts to document the use of salary withholding as a tool against educators and unions; The AFT will call on Education International to petition UNESCO to highlight in its teacher salary database the incidents when governments are withholding teacher salaries as a weapon; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT will request that Education International submit its 2025 research report, titled “Teacher Compensation in Crisis Contexts: Challenges in the Occupied Palestinian Territories” to the International Labor Organization; the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association treats wage withholding, used as pressure against unions, to be a violation of ILO Convention No. 87—Freedom of Association—ratified by Israel more than 60 years ago; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT will build an alliance of teachers unions and public sector unions to advocate for the creation of a multinational donor safety net to ensure that teachers in the West Bank and Gaza, at all levels, elementary to higher education, can be paid their due wages; the message of this alliance shall be a call to governments “to not forget public sector workers in the future rebuilding of a war-torn Middle East.”

Adopted July 18, 2026