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In the kingdom of Jordan, a crisis arose last year when the teachers' union was disbanded and some teachers were fired, disciplined or even arrested after negotiations with the government broke down. Recently, one official from the ministry of education while announcing the cancelling of some of these punishments declared that "الإضراب في كل الدساتير ممنوع", which roughly translates to "going on strike in all constitutions is prohibited" [he was talking about public school teachers and similar employees].

I don't think many nations mention in their constitutions anything about schoolteachers going on strike, so I interpret his statement as referring to the legal rather than the constitutional status of it.

The question is about the accuracy of this statement: Are there any jurisdictions in which public school teachers are:

  1. Clearly prohibited from going on strike
  2. Clearly allowed to go on strike

If you have definite knowledge, please provide examples for either one or both cases.

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    Are you sure the official was referring to national constitutions and not something else that was translated poorly?
    – Azor Ahai -him-
    Commented Oct 28, 2021 at 14:42
  • In Arabic, the word he used was "dasaateer", the plural of "dostoor", which means constitution. As the question mentions, I'm sure he didn't mean national constitutions, but it sounded to me he meant something like "in all nations"
    – Amin Dodin
    Commented Oct 28, 2021 at 15:17
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    Teacher strikes in the United States are governed by state law. A quick look at wikipedia lists multiple local strikes in the US.
    – doneal24
    Commented Oct 28, 2021 at 16:06
  • @doneal24 Yes, I realize strikes take place, but just because something happened doesn't mean it's "clearly legal". As I understand it, US law is to a large extent precedent-based. Has any of these strikes resulted in litigation that established the legality or illegality of such strikes?
    – Amin Dodin
    Commented Oct 28, 2021 at 17:30
  • Does this help?
    – doneal24
    Commented Oct 28, 2021 at 18:04

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Germany

There is a group of civil servants called Beamte. They are expected to show special loyalty to the state, and in turn the state is expected to show special loyalty to them. Different pension rules from regular workers, different healthcare rules, they can only be fired for gross misconduct, but in turn they are not allowed to go on strike and the state has more leeway on simply reassigning them to a different office.

Then there is a group of civil servants called Angestellte im öffentlichen Dienst, whose contract is much closer to a private sector employee contract in Germany. They are allowed to go on strike for better salary or better working conditions.

Some teachers are Beamte, some are Angestellte. It differs from state to state, and also by the date when they entered the profession. So some teachers in Germany can go on strike and some cannot. Both types may be mixed in the same school.

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