Arts teachers under the umbrella of Uganda Professional Humanity Teachers Union (UPHTU) Lango branch scheduled a sit down strike starting June 6 2025 over continued salary discrimination and un-fulfilled government promises.
However, it is anticipated that the action by Lango teachers could attract waves of industrial actions
from teachers and other trade union groups countrywide.
In a 10 resolution census, the teachers took the decision to boycott classroom duties until the government addresses the growing wage disparities between arts and science
teachers which they called continued marginalization.
Among others, the teachers agreed not to take bribes to abandon the cause, and joint demand for better working
conditions
However, there is an emerging discussion among constitutional overseers and rights groups that the government/Attorney General should challenge some unfair trade unions and methods of showing dissatisfaction.
Among the mentioned modules is the sit down strike often advanced by trade unions and actors like teachers, doctors among others.
It should be noted that in Israel, on May 7th 2025, the Tel Aviv Labor Court ruled in favor of the government and ordered teachers who have been protesting salary cuts by
taking sick days to cease their disruptions and return to work unless they were actually ill. The court also instructed the educators “not to use this method of protest again” according to the Jerusalem.
The advancements include the need for the Constitutional court to determine whether the complete sit down strikes do not violate Constitutional rights like the rights to education, health care among many other rights, and the need to restrict sit downs to one day or specific hours of the working calendar.
Well knowing that ‘Industrial Action’ is a right, the argument being advanced by agitators is that there’s need to establish a balance between right some of these services like health, education are basic human rights and any violations or non-
deliveries violate key fundamental and constitutional rights of the consumers. The exercise of one right should not violate or cause violation of another/other right(s).
Therefore, a government that superintends their violations is guilty of failure upon its constitutional duties regarding the protection of provision of the violated rights.
Could teachers or any other trade union groups sit down one day a week? Well, this is a fair method of industrial action as it strikes a balance between citizens’ rights to receive education as well as showing grievances and dissatisfaction of pay and work related concerns.
Is the teachers’ strike timely? The timing of the pending industrial action may result in mere lies and more unrealistic promises from the government and the Ministry of Education given the un-availability of funds in the budget.
It should be noted that Parliament passed the Budget framework paper in January this year. According to Parliament, Government presented a Shs 40.7 trillion budget for the 2025/2026 financial year with an allocation to the Ministry of education of Shs 497.1 billion for recurrent costs and Shs 322.9 billion for development projects.
In simple terms, the ministry of finance has not allocated any money for salary increments in the coming budget. However, the welfare of teachers can be catered for by the Ministry of Education and Sport’s policies using part of the allocated funds.
The welfare could include housings for teachers, meals, teaching materials like textbooks, laboratory equipment, computers, and chalk among others. However, this will
largely depend on what policies the ministry initiates or the level of transparency and accountability within the ministry.
Teacher strikes are not new in the country but more often, these have always been insensitive due to employing crude methods for example complete sit down strikes, excessive demands among others. Some of these strikes have yielded negotiations with the government, pledges and promises, fulfillment; others have been futile and
called off.
Richard Byamukama is a lawyer, and a security studies expert.
