Teachers protest as school year starts

Teachers protest as school year starts

Education sector employees from 49 cities in Serbia gathered in downtown Belgrade, and the president of the association, Dragan Matijević, said that they were demanding the adoption of a strategy with clearly defined solutions for redundant workers and of laws providing for salary grades for the calculation of monthly salaries for employees in schools.

“We are fighting for dignity. We must not allow the labor law that makes us slaves and the law on trade unions abolishing the unions,” he said.

“It is not true that wages in the public sector increased enormously in recent years,” said Vladimir Adžić of the association, and recalled that the average monthly salary in education was around RSD 43,500, which was less than the republic average, despite at least 70 percent of employees in primary and secondary education institutions holding university degrees.

He said wages in education had not increased since 2008, with the total increase over the five previous years amounting to only 8.18 percent, which, considering the growth in retail prices, was a drop in real terms of 20 percent.

Those taking part in the protest called on the government not to create "highly-educated have-nots" and urged the trade unions’ association membership to persist in their demands.

The leadership of the Association announced that classes had been suspended on Monday in about 240 schools that were members of the Association, while in 60 schools the classes had been shortened to half an hour.

The Ministry of Education said, however, that classes had been completely stopped in 96 of the 1,764 schools in Serbia, and cut in length in 29 schools.

The Association of Teachers' Trade Unions has about 30,000 members in 600 schools.