TEACHERS’ TRADE UNION – WARNING STRIKE

For almost two years employees in education have been working in pandemic conditions and maintaining educational processes in the state of emergency. The number of students is unknown while the Government and the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development are insensitive to trade union’s appeals that teachers are finacially and professionally humiliated.
At the session held on August 27, 2021 National Committee of the Teachers’ Trade Union of Serbia discussed the current situation and position of employees and decided to ask for negotiations with the Government of the Republic of Serbia and line ministries about their demands. The demands were sent on August 31.
The first demand is to increase the cost of labour by 15%. This relates to the increase of minimum wage of 9.4% and will be applied starting from January 1. For the past 5 years the increase of cost of labour in education has been lower than minimum wage increase, which led to a complete disruption of the co-efficient system.
The second demand relates to the amendment to the Rulebook on class formation aimed at reducing the number of students in primary and secondary schools. The reduction of the number of students would improve the quality of lessons and lead to less redundacies that seem to go up year in year out.
Our final demand is to amend rulebooks on financial criteria and standards for primary and secondary schools which would enable associates and non-instructional personnel to be financed in proportion to the number of classes, i.e. the area of the institution. This would also apply to the support personnel in educational institutions.
Presidency of the Teachers’ Trade Union decided to send its demands once again to the competent bodies and establish a deadline of 10 days for the start of negotiations. If the negotiations didn’t start within the stipulated time, Teachers’ Trade Union would go on strike.
As the invitation to negotiate didn’t follow, decision was made to organize a warning strike on October 22, 2021. We underline that social dialogue between the employer and trade union has been at the lowest possible level for the past several years.