Minister of Labor and Social Policy Jovanka Trenchevska said the Education, Science and Culture Workers’ Union should accept the government’s offer to increase teachers’ salaries by 10 percent and go back to work in the interest of children because not doing so was “coercion,” news agency MIA informs.
Union members, on the other hand, said the verbal offer was not enough to restore dignity to the teaching profession. According to Minister Trenchevska, children being out of daycare centers for the second week was “unacceptable, considering the constitutional right of every child to have access to preschool education.”
“The solution offered by the government to increase teachers’ and caregivers’ salaries by 10 percent represents an average raise of 2,500 denars [EUR 40] for preschool teachers and 2,000 denars [EUR 32] for caregivers,” Trenchevska said. According to her, this was a good offer considering the economic crisis, price shocks, and the covid pandemic. Union members should have accepted this offer and gone back to work, she told reporters in Strumica.
“Not accepting this solution is nothing but coercion and putting the personal interests of the union before the interests of children and students,” the labor minister said.
To reopen some daycare centers while their employees are on strike, she said, the mayors of those municipalities should look for substitute teachers so children could go back to preschool and their parents back to work.
On Sunday, the Education, Science and Culture Workers’ Union rejected the government’s verbal offer of a 10-percent raise for teachers and refused to stop the strike.
According to union leader Jakim Nedelkov, one of the reasons that 95 percent of union members rejected the offer was that it was verbal and not written.
The union members also thought the offer was “not enough to restore dignity to the teaching profession.” In response, the government said striking teachers would not get paid, in line with the Labor Relations Law, except for their compulsory social insurance contributions.
Last week, in response to the teachers’ demands, the government said salaries in public education had already been increased since 2017 by 21 percent, with teachers now earning between Mden 24,786 [EUR 402] and Mden 25,642 [EUR 416] per month.
The nationwide strike organized by the Education, Science and Culture Workers’ Union began on April 11.
Union members are demanding an immediate increase of teachers’ salaries by 18.4 percent, after the minimum wage was increased to 18,000 denars [EUR 292].
