Ruptly
"University professors in Venezuela carried out a 24-hour strike on Tuesday in Caracas to demand salary improvements and to denounce a budget crisis that, they say, is affecting the higher education system. Images show the protest held at the Central University of Venezuela (UCV), where faculty members gathered with signs and slogans to demand a dignified wage for the teaching profession. This action paralyzed academic and school activities at the institution. "Today we are carrying out a 24-hour shutdown of the university sector. This is happening because of the enormous and acute salary crisis facing the sector," said José Gregorio, President of the UCV professors' association. He indicated that compensation in the university sector is very low, as a professor with a doctorate degree can earn between 20 cents and one dollar, which is insufficient to cover their daily expenses and forces them to look for alternative sources of employment. For his part, Professor Luis Torrealba explained that the bonuses provided by the Venezuelan government are not taken into account when calculating social benefits, or when a worker retires or goes on vacation leave. "In other words, a person with a family of five members cannot even buy groceries for the household with what they are paid as an end-of-year bonus," he stated. Given this situation, the protesters warned that they will intensify their demonstrations in the coming weeks if they do not receive a response from the authorities. "We will escalate the conflict. Escalating the conflict for the university sector means taking to mobilization, agitation, and denouncing what we are living through. We are ruling nothing out in terms of the actions we will take," asserted Luis Crespo, an economics professor. This protest stems from the Professional Responsibility Bonus approved by the Executive Branch on April 30, from which around 170,000 university workers were excluded, a move they consider arbitrary."
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