At a recent protest, organized by the Autonomous Trade Union of Employees in Pre-School Institutions of Serbia, the activists asked for an urgent establishment of a Work group that will work to solve their problems. There were 5,000 people who first gathered in front of the building of the Ministry of Education and later they went to the Government of Serbia. The protesters carried banner saying ‘We haven’t brought you up to behave like that’ and said that their salaries were 2.5 times lower than the average.
One of the protesters, Marijana Šen, stated that pre-school institutions were handed over to the mercy of local self-governments, but there were also positive examples from Čačak.
‘’There are cities where employees aren’t refunded for travel expenses, vacation bonus or hot meal’’, she pointed out.
Pre-school educators demanded the pay rise from the budgetary reserves of the Republic of Serbia. Other demands are:
- Recognition of adequate co-efficients for the upskilled staff where this hasn’t still been done and change of position of the Ministry of Finance in giving its consent to the increase of mass of resources,
- Payment of hot meal and vacation bonus for those on minimum wage,
- Respect of legal norm for the number of children in a group and easing the work load for the existing human capacities,
- Provision of better conditions for the purchase of apartments, according to the model valid for army, police and young married couples.
