ISU: Unhappy Teachers to Continue Their Strike Also in October

Bratislava, October 4 (TASR) – The Slovak Teachers Initiative (ISU) will continue with their incremental strike, which began on September 13, also in October, representatives of ISU confirmed on Tuesday.

“Mr. Finance Minister (Peter Kazimir) is asking us for “basal peace”… Unfortunately, those of us working in education and bearing witness to the latest goings-on and constant changes, when nothing really gets done, are, of course, hard-pressed to find that basal peace… Our answer, therefore, is basal protest,” said Jarmila Javorkova of ISU.

The next protest is slated to take place on Friday, October 7, before the Finance Ministry. “It’ll be a protest of those who don’t take kindly to the fact that the profession of a teacher has been denigrated in our society. It’ll also be the protest of those who take objection to zero teacher salary hikes, because they consider it a travesty,” said Javorkova.

The teachers on strike will cut out four hours worth of their classes on Friday and plan to introduce a strike every six days instead of the current 8-day cycle. This means that the next strikes are slated for Thursday (October 13), Wednesday (October 19) and Tuesday (October 25).

ISU also made a statement on the ongoing 2017 Collective Agreement talks, where the state proposed salary hikes of three percent for public servants, but that is not supposed to apply to teachers. “The motion sponsored by Mr. Finance Minister, according to which educators shouldn’t receive any further hikes as of January 1, is a mockery in our view,” said Branislav Kocan of ISU. He added that the teachers are also aware of the Government’s attempt to inspire jealousy among representatives of individual professions.

“We show full solidarity to all employees in other spheres, but we believe that we have submitted a sufficient amount of arguments and analyses in our case, which confirm that the profession of a teacher should receive more in terms of remuneration,” added Kocan.