Representatives of all four representative trade unions educational workers they announced what it will look like legally strike in schools, which will start on Monday, November 4, that is, that the classes will last 30 minutes, and that the first working week will be on strike in schools in Belgrade and Požarevac.
The strike will be preceded by a complete suspension of work in schools on Friday, November 1, and a large protest in Belgrade, which will be attended by employees of educational institutions from all over Serbia.
"We will invite our families and our children to be present at that protest." We want to show the Government that we also have our own families that depend on our earnings. We will also send an invitation to parents, grandparents to join in as well," Danilo Gligorić, president of the Education Workers' Union of Serbia, told Danas.
Strikers divided into four groups
Gligorić specified that the strike, within the legal framework, will mean shortening the hours to 30 minutes.
It is planned to go on strike from November 4 to 8 in Belgrade and the Požarevac School Administration. Since there are a large number of schools in the capital, the original idea of holding a strike in four school administrations at the same time was abandoned.
Next week, Novi Sad, that is, Vojvodina and schools from the area of the Valjevo school administration will be on legal strike.
On the third week of November, classes will be shortened in schools in the area of Niš, Vranje, Leskovac, Zaječar, as well as in the Kruševac School Administration, and on the fourth week in central and western Serbia, that is, in schools in Kraljevo, Čačak, Gornji Milanovac, Kragujevac, Užice and Prijepolje.
Press conferences will be organized on Thursdays in one of the major cities. If in the meantime a budget is adopted that is not favorable for employees in education, additional protests will be organized, and the strike will be "hardened".
The ministry only represents that it wants to talk
Gligorić pointed out that the Minister of Education Slavica Đukić Dejanović, through the media, is inviting education unions to continue negotiations, but that there is still no official invitation, which only represents to the public that the Ministry of Education wants to talk.
"I think they don't have the strength to organize a meeting, because the Government, and above all the Ministry of Finance, prevent that meeting because they have nothing to offer us." We are expecting an invitation next week as well, we have our demands, which are reasonable, but the government does not want to fulfill them because it is afraid of the reaction of other unions and is trying to enforce its will to the end and to discipline workers in the public sector, especially in education," he pointed out. Gligorić.
He assessed that the demands of the educators are reasonable and that the Government can support them financially, "because the money that is distributed to various parties is much greater than the funds requested by the educators."
School principals are also dissatisfied
Commenting on the support of some school principals, Gligorić pointed out that they themselves are dissatisfied because they do an extremely important and responsible job, and they are also poorly paid.
He assessed that principals are very sensitive to the position of their first collaborators in schools - psychologists and pedagogues, who, in addition to class teachers, carry the work of schools, and lag behind in terms of salaries and status in schools and society.
Four representative trade unions of educational workers demand that the starting salary of teachers from January 1, 2025 be equal to the average national salary, while the Government offers a 12 percent raise to teachers and eight percent to all other employees in education.
The unions are also demanding an urgent start of negotiations on the price of labor for 2025 and on the Special Collective Agreement for employees in primary, secondary schools and student dormitories, because the current one expires in the spring.
