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Teachers threaten to strike Dec. 4

Amid ministry upheavals, educators protest 2008 budget

By Markéta Hulpachová
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
November 28th, 2007 issue

Union leaders expect up to 70 percent of schools to shut down Dec. 4 during a planned strike against the government’s education budget.
Voicing their dissatisfaction with the Education Ministry’s 2008 allotment of funds, the Czech-Moravian Education Workers Union (ČMOS PŠ) has invited education workers nationwide to gather in Prague 1–Malá Strana during the Chamber of Deputies’ third reading of the government’s 2008 state budget bill.
Alarmed by the government’s slashes to the education budget, which were approved in October as part of a new law on finance reform, the ČMOS PŠ is demanding a 3 billion Kč ($165.7 million) rise to education funding, of which 500,000 Kč would go toward school supplies.
The remaining 2.5 billion Kč would raise the wages of regional school employees, whose planned 1.5 percent increase has been deemed “insufficient” by union leaders.
“Our main goal is to improve the education environment for all children without impacting the budgets of their families,” says ČMOS PŠ Chairman František Dobšík.
Temporarily charged with responsibility for the Education Ministry, Deputy Prime Minister and Green Party Chairman Martin Bursík says he is willing to discuss the possibility of raising the budget.
“If an opportunity to get money for education arises, naturally, we will grasp it,” he told the Czech News Agency Nov. 22.
However, although backed by the opposition Social Democrats, Bursík says the 3 billion Kč amount of the unions’ proposed budget increase is unrealistic.
“Any politician who is not a social idiot will tell you that the strike is unjustifiable,” he says.
The planned protests come after Bursík’s expected Nov. 30 nomination of Green Party Vice Chairman Ondřej Liška to the post of education minister.
If approved by Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek, Liška will replace Dana Kuchtová, who was forced to leave her ministerial post in September amid allegations that she mishandled the research and development funds allotted to the ministry by the European Union.
Since Kuchtová’s departure, education workers have criticized Bursík for failing to find a replacement.
“Bursík has not been able to find a suitable successor. ... At a time when the state budget is being approved, we’re missing a key politician to defend out interests,” ČMOS PŠ says in a statement.   

Markéta Hulpachová can be reached at mhulpachova@praguepost.com


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