Some University Lecturers to Launch Strike as of Monday

Bratislava, February 12 (TASR) – Some university lecturers will interrupt their work on Monday (February 15) and go on a full-fledged strike, TASR learnt on Friday.

February 15 is the day when the summer semester begins at most universities. Lecturers are taking over the relay baton from the Slovak Teachers Initiative (ISU), which is interrupting its strike as of Monday.

So far, lecturers from 14 universities have announced that they are joining the strike, among them staff from the University of Economics in Bratislava, Presov University, the Slovak Agricultural University in Nitra and Comenius University in Bratislava.

“This figure means that if at least one lecturer from a university is registered as being on strike as of Monday, the university will be viewed as being involved in the strike,” TASR was told by Juraj Halas from the University Lecturers Initiative (IVU), which is organising the action.

According to Halas, as many as 50 lecturers from certain universities have signed up for the strike, while there are other universities with some 30 lecturers and others with around ten lecturers set to strike. He declined to reveal the total number of staff joining the strike as of Monday, however, stating merely that it’s a three-digit figure. The strongest involvement is at Comenius University in Bratislava, he said.

IVU has basically the same demands as ISU. The dissatisfied staff are asking for salary increases for all teaching and other professional staff in regional education by €140 per month as of this year and by €90 per month as of the beginning of 2017. Other demands include increasing the budgets of the ministries of education and interior by hundreds of millions of euros in order to tackle differences in equipment at individual institutions.

ISU earlier this week announced that as of February 15 it will suspend its strike, which was launched on January 25.