On Friday, November 18 National Committee of the Autonomous Trade Union of Employees in Pre-School Institutions of Serbia organized a public session, after which it submitted to the Ministry of State Administration and Local Self-Government a petition with more than 30,000 signatures and a repeated initiative for the amendment to the Decree on co-efficients for salary calculation and payment in public services, regarding the section on pre-school education.
‘Primarily, we wish to stress the importance of pre-school education, as well as all employee structures that are necessary to achieve it. Capacities that Serbia possesses are insufficient to cover all children; groups are too big, there is no respect of legal norms, which makes working conditions more difficult.’
‘The highest salaries earned by employees in pre-school education, who have university degrees, amount to 567EUR, and those with a high-school diploma get 486EUR. A huge number of employees, around 30%, are on minimum wage, and with a new minimum wage rise of 14.3%, this number will increase significantly,’ said the Autonomous Trade Union of Employees in Pre-School Institutions of Serbia.
They point out to working conditions and salaries as a reason why there is a lack of interest in the employment in this profession and it is more and more often impossible to hire needed staff to secure normal functioning.
