Analysis
In February 2025, a striking university teacher in Mali dismissed the prospect of salary deductions. “We have organised collectively,” the teacher told RFI. Less than two weeks later, union leaders suspended the stoppage for negotiations. Another member thought they should have secured concrete commitments before returning.
That disagreement exposes the bargaining choice facing teachers who again stopped work on 26 October 2026 over a research allowance promised in 2017. They can disrupt the universities, but sustaining that leverage puts their own earnings at risk. Talks offer a possible way forward before the government has committed to payment.
Pressure runs both ways
The government’s response in 2025 was not confined to silence. Le Soir de Bamako’s 6 February report quoted a 4 February ministry letter instructing university heads to apply salary deductions to strikers. The letter also requested reports on participation and implementation of the deductions.
The ministry’s stated position recognised a legitimate right to strike while describing deductions for unworked days as an employer’s duty. That gave university administrators a role in the confrontation: recording who stopped work and reporting back, not simply managing missed classes. The reports establish the instruction, not how much pay was actually withheld.
Collective organisation was one possible answer to that pressure. The teacher interviewed by RFI on 4 February said deductions were not a problem because colleagues had organised together. That confidence complicates any assumption that threatened salary losses would automatically break the movement. It was one participant’s assessment, however, not everyone’s calculation.
By 17 February, RFI reported a commission bringing together ministry advisers, union representatives and university rectors. Leaders welcomed having made their voices heard and suspended the strike. A member wanted a deadline for proposals; another described both sides needing a respite. Avoiding deductions was part of the account of returning.
The opening of negotiations was a substantive change: officials were participating in a process to address the demand. Financial pressure need not have been the sole reason for resuming work. But the differences among teachers show why a leadership decision to accept talks cannot be treated as agreement that enough had been won.
Who controls the next concession?
The commission could prepare a draft. It could not, by itself, deliver the final rate-setting decision. The original 2017 decree lists the research allowance but assigns the setting of allowance amounts to a decree adopted in the Council of Ministers. Turning negotiating proposals into a government decision therefore remained an executive task, rather than something university heads or union delegates could settle alone.
The demand’s persistence into 2026 limits any claim that the earlier talks secured the payment sought. Why settlement failed remains unresolved. A shortage of funds, disagreement over the amount or back-pay, and administrative obstruction would require different remedies. A grievance dating to 2017 cannot be explained simply by military rule or the later dissolution of political parties.
A signed rate-setting decision and a payment timetable would give teachers something more definite to evaluate than the prospect of further discussions. In its 9 November report, RFI described the renewed strike becoming indefinite despite a 7 November mediation offer from religious and traditional representatives. Those intermediaries offered help, not a payment commitment. Students meanwhile faced further interrupted teaching.