Major education workers’ unions announced they will continue negotiations with the Serbian government and suspend their strike starting January 20.
The unions said they will call for resuming the strike if their demands are not met.
They also expressed support for the students’ demands.
Serbian Prime Minister Milos Vucevic will meet with major education unions Wednesday at 10 am at the Palace of Serbia in Belgrade, the Serbian Government announced. The meeting follows Tuesday’s announcement by the unions that they will continue salary increase negotiations and suspend their strike, which has been ongoing since November, Beta reported.
Earlier, Martin Mihailovic from the Union of Education Workers of Serbia explained their demands to N1.
“We are negotiating some changes and amendments to the Special Collective Agreement that applies to secondary schools. These changes should ensure everything we have asked for so far, including that employees who do not have a full workload at one institution will more easily obtain the remaining workload within the same school, with priority over others. Additionally, we want a guarantee that the base salary for teachers, that is, of employees with a VII level qualification in education, will be aligned with the national average salary,” said Mihailovic.
Serbia’s Prime Minister Milos Vucevic said after a meeting with education workers’ unions on January 9 that the government wants to give education system staff two 5% raises this year, in March and in October. He said the raises were offered in agreement with President Aleksandar Vucic.
