The greedy teachers' union

By Irvine Syazyombo
A string of Hammer, Benz and Pajero cars arrived within minutes of each other at the Intra-Continental Hotel car park.

Nine men and a woman dressed in exorbitant suits sauntered into the hotel, the venue of their meeting.

Once all the members of the Greedy Teachers Union national executive were seated, the treasurer, Beene, said the opening prayer.

After the opening prayer, union secretary, Mwewa, read the agenda:
1. Prayer
2. Teachers’ complaints
3Union members’ welfare
4. AOB.

After the secretary had read the agenda, the chairman, Hakuulu, led the others into discussing teachers’ complaints.

“The outstanding complaint among our members, the teachers is rural hardship allowance which they feel is insufficient. What does the house say?” Hakuulu queried.

“They are just being short sighted and stupid. In fact when we meet government for negotiations, we should advocate a big reduction in that allowance because teachers in rural areas do not need much money. The little they are getting is in fact excessive to them,” argued the treasurer.

On housing allowance the meeting agreed that teachers were supposed to live in places commensurate with their status.

“Why do they always give us problems? They must live in shanty compounds where they will pay less rent. If they want to go to low density areas, they have to start small things like sweet and chewing gums and make more money. We will not negotiate for a foolish increase in housing allowance,” argued Monica the only woman on the committee.

Before she finished speaking, a waiter went round serving each member with an expensive soft drink, snack and bottled water.

“The teachers are also saying we their union representatives should negotiate for car loans from government…”

“That is rubbish,” Hakuulu interrupted his secretary. “How many of those poor teachers know how to drive? Can’t they be realistic for once? Those in rural areas can continue travelling by ox cart and cycling. The urban teachers have to travel by public transport. They should not drive and compete with us,” he argued as others nodded with approval.

The secretary also reminded the committee of housing, acting, and responsibility arrears government owed teachers nationwide.

“Those old cases teachers have to learn to forget. That is history. Those who did not receive their arrears can go to hell. That is rubbish,” said Chisala the national publicity secretary.

Then the general secretary read the committee welfare item on the agenda that received a round of applause because everybody was passionate about selfish interest.

“Yes, the $1 000 000 loans each one got two years ago, I feel we should cancel that. It is a bad debt. We should start borrowing afresh. Whatever we have borrowed in the past from union coffers, we should not pay back. It is history…”

“Yees! Yeeees.Yes!” everybody interrupted jubilantly.

“And…and…” the chairman went on, “We have to establish a friendly atmosphere with government so that we can remain in these positions for a long time. Who knows, if the regime likes you, you may be the next ambassador somewhere! We know what we are doing. Teachers can continue barking.”

“Since we get plenty of money now from contributions by our teachers, I suggest that we increase sitting allowance from $10 000 to $20 000 per individual per sitting. If we go beyond lunch, we should have a lunch allowance of $30 000,” the chairman proposed as others jubilated.

The president also said they were not going to have any elections in the next ten years as they still wanted to continue enjoying money from teachers who would not know whether elections had taken place or not.

On that year’s negotiations, the union officials agreed that they would not ‘waste’ time arguing with government on behalf of their nationwide teacher-members because they needed enough time to spend the money they had raised from teachers’ contributions.

In concluding the meeting, the chairman urged the committee to stand by whatever had been agreed to so that they could continue enjoying the benefits of being national union members.