Up to now more than 32,000 citizens signed the petition supporting the demand of the Autonomous Trade Union of Employees in Pre-School Education to amend the Decree which would enable the pay rise for the employees in the sector. Trade Union President, Bosiljka Jovanović states that the petition is signed in several cities in Serbia. In Belgrade it is done at Nikola Pašić Square and on Sunday a stand will be put up at the Square of the Republic. ‘We are collecting signatures till new government has been established and after that we will submit the petition and there will be a new protest with even more participants. Our goal is to direct public’s attention to the position of employees in pre-school education. We won’t give up until our initiative to amend the Decree on co-efficients for pay calculation and payment in public services, which in the part relating to pre-school education hasn’t been changed since 2012, has been accepted. I remind you that at the time the Decree was passed, the ratio between the lowest and the highest pay was 1:3. Our proposal is to make it 1:2 and that is why we consider this demand modest’, points out Jovanović. She makes it clear that the amendment to the Decree would annually cost a bit less than five billion dinars. Having in mind the importance of pre-school education, bad working conditions and specificities of the profession, this is a low cost for the state. Educators with a university degree are paid the highest – 66,000RSD (564EUR), which is below the average salary of school employees with the same level of education. If the Decree were amended, their pay would be increased to 70,000RSD (598EUR). Due to accumulated problems, since the beginning of the year members of the Autonomous Trade Union of Employees in Pre-School Education have organized two protests.
