ZAGREB, Jan 7 (Hina) - The Croatian Teachers Union (SHU) will on January 13 organise a five-day strike in primary schools and the government will have to pay the strikers for the time spent on strike, union leader Dalimir Kuba said at
a news conference on Tuesday.
ZAGREB, Jan 7 (Hina) - The Croatian Teachers Union (SHU) will on
January 13 organise a five-day strike in primary schools and the
government will have to pay the strikers for the time spent on
strike, union leader Dalimir Kuba said at a news conference on
Tuesday. #L#
Between 13 and 17 January, classes will not be held in 768 primary
schools where the union has commissioners, Kuba said, calling on
other primary school employees to join in the strike, independently
of which union they belonged to.
The strike can be cancelled only if the government meets the union
requests and allocate additional funds for the salaries of non-
teaching staff in primary schools, Kuba said.
The government has set aside an additional 200 million kuna for the
school system for this year, which, according to union estimates,
covers an average increase in teachers' gross salaries by around
six percent.
The decision does not refer to the technical staff, who together
make up around 25% of employees in the school system.
The union requests the payment of another 80 million kuna from the
budget of the Education and Sports Ministry, which would increase
the salaries of all employees in primary schools by 10 percent on
average, Kuba said.
Kuba dismissed as unfounded statements by Prime Minister Ivica
Racan and his deputy Goran Granic that the strikers' salaries would
be reduced by the time spent on strike, claiming that the government
had bound itself to this by signing a collective agreement.
Kuba said that Racan and Granic were misleading the public by
claiming that the salaries of the technical and administrative
staff in schools could not be increased because it would require an
increase in the salaries of other public and civil servants.
Last October the government signed a collective agreement for the
sector of social care which increased the salaries of all employees
in the sector, Kuba said.
The news conference was also attended by the head of the Independent
Union of Employees in Secondary Schools, Andrija Puljevic, who
stated that his union would probably organise a strike in secondary
schools and dormitories as well.
(hina) rml