Education Trade Union Declares Strike Alert on Tuesday

        Bratislava, December 17 (TASR) - The Education Trade Union declared a strike alert on Tuesday in an effort to highlight persisting dissatisfaction with the financing of Slovak education and to confirm the determination of employees to push for the trade union's demands partly via coercive activities, including a strike, TASR learnt from union head Pavel Ondek on Tuesday.
        "Despite several rounds of negotiations between representatives of the Education Trade Union and representatives of the Education and Finance Ministries, no agreement has been reached to date to meet our demands, which we also stressed via a protest called 'Education in Mourning - Protest in Black'," said the union boss. One of the demands is an increase of at least 10 percent in the salaries of all education employees in 2025 and 2026.
        Ondek pointed out that Education Minister Tomas Drucker (Voice-SD) informed the trade union about possible savings within the sector at a meeting on Monday (December 16). However, according to Ondek, these savings can only partially cover the required salary increase in 2025 and 2026, and there's a need to boost funds from the state budget. "That's why we're asking Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) and chairman of the Voice-SD party Matus Sutaj Estok, whose nominee is the education minister, to address the urgent problems in the Slovak education system," he added.
        The Education Trade Union continues to insist on other demands concerning the remuneration of education workers. Among other things, it wants unified financing of all regional education employees directly from the budget of the Education Ministry and the option of dividing the content of education in the state education programme into grades.