BRATISLAVA, November 3, (WEBNOVINY) — The Education Ministry appreciates the decision of education trade unions to not go on strike as well as their fairness in all their recent talks. “We are glad that the representatives of the trade unions understand that currently the salaries of teaching staff are influenced by the possibilities of public finances,” said Education Ministry spokeswoman Miriam Ziakova. In spite of the tight budget, the government wants to support education. “We hold the position that strikes and stirring emotions at city squares do no help search solutions. To the contrary, countries are successful when rational arguments are presented in negotiations,” added Ziakova.
An extraordinary council of the Trade Union of Workers in Education and Science in Slovakia did not call a strike for this Thursday although they had a written mandate from 60 percent of teachers. “We’ve considered continuing in further negotiations to be lesser evil, even though many colleagues will criticize us for this,” said education unions deputy chairman Jozef Luzak at a press conference. The unions acknowledged that a caretaker Cabinet has only limited possibilities. The unions will remain in strike emergency until a congress planned for November 24 -26. However, Luzak indicated that the main program of the congress that takes place once every four years would be election of new union officials and bodies and discussing the vision for the four years to come.
The unions consider Prime Minister Iveta Radicova’s decision to increase the salaries of non-pedagogic employees to be a partial success. While average salary of a teacher is 740 euros per month, janitors, cooks or cleaning staff only earn some 461 euro. However, the Cabinet still did not accept unions’ demand to annually spend 6 percent GDP on education and increase teachers’ salaries to 1.2- to 1.6-fold of average income even though Education Minister Eugen Jurzyca pushed through an amendment to the law on teaching staff in October. Based on it, the salaries of teachers in county-controlled education system will increase in average by 5.7 percent (9 to 60 euros) from 2012.
SITA