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Teachers plan strike over salaries

Education Ministry makes 'final offer' in ongoing pay dispute

By Julie O'Shea
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
June 4th, 2008 issue

ISIFA
A teacher contemplates an empty Prague 5 classroom during the first teachers' strike, held Dec. 4, 2007, over the 2008 education budget.
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The teacher salary war rages on.
The Education Ministry extended an olive branch — a 5 percent pay hike — last month that was flatly rejected by union representatives, who announced plans to hold a one-day strike June 9 in protest.
According to one union leader, František Dobšík, this extra money “does not solve the issue of real wage decline of employees in education in 2008.” And, Dobšík added, it “does not address the fact that financial resources will be lower for other noninvestment expenses,” like teacher training and textbooks.
The ministry is offering teachers an extra 500 million Kč ($31.4 million) for 2008 and 4.5 billion Kč for next year. Unions are said to be pushing for an additional 3 billion Kč for the year.
The ministry, however, has indicated that the current proposal is its final offer — for now.
“The increase is a maximum at this point,” said ministry spokesman Ondřej Gabriel.
As of press time, union representatives were pressing forward with strike preparations. If government officials fail to prevent June 9’s scheduled walkout, this will be the second teacher strike in six months. The last one was staged in early December, which was, coincidently, Education Minister Ondřej Liška’s first day on the job.            
“We have called on all employees to support us [this time around],” said Dobšík, who heads ČMOS PŠ, which represents around 50,000 educators. “If they are satisfied with the proposed wage increase, their nonparticipation will support the minister.”
The tools of learning
Of the country’s 200,000 teachers, union officials report that more than half are in favor of striking.
“The issue of financing the regional school system … is an ongoing problem that has remained unsolved for years,” Liška told The Prague Post earlier this year. “I support the demand for more money, but I will fight for it only if I have a very concrete plan in my hands of how to enhance the quality of education.”
Gabriel said negotiations, which involve not only the unions but also the Finance and Labor and Social Affairs ministries, are currently centered on more money for school tools and books. As for the salary increase, Gabriel explained that it is not up to the Education Ministry to decide how much each teacher gets. That decision, he said, is up to the headmaster or principal of each school.
“They are responsible for the allocation,” Gabriel noted. “We hope there will be no strike.”
Dobšík says unions would like to see teacher salaries “reach the average of what university-educated employees in the public sector earn — 28,000 Kč.” Right now, Dobšík said, teachers bring home an average of 23,000 to 24,000 Kč a month, which is not on par with today’s inflation rates. Teachers saw a salary increase last year with the average educator receiving 5.6 percent more in their monthly paycheck, Dobšík said.
Statistics provided by the Education Ministry show that teacher salaries have more than doubled over the past decade. In 1997, average monthly salaries were at 11,354 Kč, according to the data. By 2003, they were at 18, 225 Kč, and, in 2005, average salaries had surpassed the 20,000 Kč mark.    
However, “the government promised it would deal with the real wage decline of employees in the regional school system,” Dobšík said. So far, that hasn’t happened.
“If there is to be an education reform carried out without affecting social peace, it will not be possible without investing into the education system,” Dobšík said.
The Czech education system underwent a rough year in 2007. Liška was installed as minister after his predecessor, Dana Kuchtová, resigned amid claims she misappropriated funding from the European Union. When Liška took over, he said one of his top priorities would be to maintain good relations with teacher unions.
The challenges ahead
Dobšík said Liška is the first person in a long time to make an effort to communicate closely with the unions. He said the current salary talks have been “civil and to the point.”
For his part, Liška seems well aware of the challenges ahead of him.      
“I know the troubles we are facing in education,” he told The Prague Post earlier this year. “They are serious, and therefore the amount of work that needs to be done is endless. … I know some things can be solved within a month, and some things can be solved within six months, and some things we can only start to solve and then see within 10, 15 years what results this might bring.”
— Naďa Černá contributed to this report.

Julie O'Shea can be reached at joshea@praguepost.com


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Reader's comments:

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[16:53 05/06/2008] : ETHOS e.V. is the European Teachers Help Operating Society that wants to spread the news about the desolate situation of teachers' work in Europe. Please contact us to support the strike of our Czech colleagues! http://www.ethos-ev.org

Chairman of ETHOS e.V.
Guido Zajonz

PS: We are still looking for an official Czech ETHOS e.V. speaker!
ETHOS e.V.
germany
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