Education Union Threatens General Strike if Conditions Are Not Met

The education union protest planned for Friday, 13 December, will not affect the educational process. Union leaders and teachers who will not have classes that day will take part in the protest. They will demand that teachers’ salaries be raised by at least 15% on 1 January, not 9% as the authorities has announced. If the demands are not included in the budget amendment, education union members threaten to go on general strike in January, radiomoldova.md reported. The Ministry of Education is looking for solutions to further increase the salaries of the employees. “We believe that it is possible to increase still teachers’ salaries in order to exclude discrimination between other social categories. We are not going on strike, i.e. we are not interrupting the process. We have announced picketing, but it is not excluded that after the New Year we will interrupt the educational process. That is, we will resort to workplace protests, with the refusal to provide relevant services and with a bit tougher demands,” states Ghenadie Donos, chairman of the Trade Union Federation of Education and Science. Olga Chiriac, a teacher from Ciuciuleni village, Hincesti district, says that although she teaches in two villages, her salary is 13 thousand lei, which is not enough for a decent life. She emphasizes that the pay of the teaching staff does not motivate the high workload and stress they face on a daily basis. “This is a very low salary compared to the prices we have now in Moldova. Many teachers leave the system, and believe me, this happened to me twice. The salary does not reflect the effort and stress in this sphere. Obviously, such a low salary can also discourage young people who want to come to our system, as it is known that the system lacks teachers,” says Olga Chiriac. The Ministry of Education and Science is in constant contact with unions and is negotiating with the Ministry of Finance to determine the resources needed to increase teachers’ salaries. The increase may range from 12 to 15%, depending on the teacher’s pedagogical degree, Minister Dan Perciun said. Recall that the education unions announced protests in front of the parliament starting at 10:00 on 13 and 19 December. According to the organizers, their goal is to draw the attention of the public and the authorities to the problems in this sphere.