Unfair to treat teachers like cheap labourers

I HAVE been a teacher for 21 years and, after all these years, my take home pay is K400.
If I were in another country, I would have been earning four or five times more than what I am getting now.
PNG is the only country where teaching is not a highly paid profession. What a shame.
What is making it harder to swallow is the teachers’ union is doing nothing to fight for its underpaid members.
When doctors and nurses go on strike, the government bends over to meet their demands.
When airline workers threaten to go on strike, the government quickly kowtows and agrees to what they want or else these leaders cannot travel.
But when teachers went on strike like in 2004, they are punished severely by being dismissed and only a handful has been reinstated recently after taking the matter to court.
You call this justice?
Of course, we can always walk away if we are not happy.
A lot have done so but many of us still remain as teachers because we enjoy our job.
But it is not fair to make us struggle to make ends meet for educating our people.

Suffering teacher
Via email