ZAGREB, May 19 (Hina) - Secondary school teachers will go on strike on Monday as announced and the strike will last until the teachers' demands are met, the leaders of the largest Croatian union of secondary school teachers decided on
Sunday, refusing the latest draft collective agreement by the Education and Sports Ministry.
ZAGREB, May 19 (Hina) - Secondary school teachers will go on strike
on Monday as announced and the strike will last until the teachers'
demands are met, the leaders of the largest Croatian union of
secondary school teachers decided on Sunday, refusing the latest
draft collective agreement by the Education and Sports Ministry.
#L#
The Independent Union of Secondary School Employees has refused the
latest compromise solution offered by the Ministry for Education
and Sports, which suggested that the contentious issue of work norm
be defined with a special regulation and that other material rights
be regulated with the basic collective agreement for the public
sector.
This is a partial solution and we will discontinue the strike only
if the contentious issues are solved together, the Union's leader
Andrija Puljevic told Hina.
Puljevic accepts the proposal that the reduction of work norm be
regulated with a special regulation, but demands that material
rights be integrated in the branch collective agreement.
It is less important if the norm will be defined with a regulation or
an annex to the agreement, however, holiday allowance, Christmas
bonus and child bonus must be regulated with a contract, Puljevic
said.
Even if the union is to hold talks with the Education Ministry, the
strike is still on, because the union's presidency, which decides
about strikes, cannot meet before tomorrow, Puljevic said.
He announced that part of the membership of smaller unions, which
gather 2,000 of 20,000 secondary school employees, would
participate in the strike as well. The unions' leaders did not
support the strike, but 30 percent of their members voted for the
strike at a recent referendum.
Employees in some 350 secondary schools and student dorms will
strike at their places of work every day between 8 am and 15 pm.
As the Union failed to respond to the ministry's latest draft
collective agreement (negotiated yesterday) by Sunday morning,
Education Minister Vladimir Strugar said the ministry would file a
lawsuit to establish if all activities leading to the strike were
legal.
(hina) rml