Teachers suspend strike for further talks, national tests postponed until May 7
Teachers decided to call off the strike planned for tomorrow but the national test was reprogrammed for May 7, declared the Education Minister Ecaterina Andronescu.
The rest of the national tests will be held according to schedule, on May 13 and 21.
Education unions and government representatives agreed to meet again on May 6 for talks. The two parties negotiated today for six hours and at first union leaders announced they would call a strike for tomorrow.
Unions in education are unhappy that the promised salary raises have been continuously put off in the past weeks. Last year, before the Parliament elections at the end of November, the outgoing lawmakers passed a law granting education staff a 50 percent raise. The president also approved it, but the former Liberal government rejected it.
The new ruling alliance, including Liberal-Democrats and Social-Democrats, promised to carry out the raise this year. However, soon after taking the helm they sliced the raise to 35 percent claiming there is not much money left in the treasury from the former government.
Then the said raise was being sliced again and teachers were promised a small increase in April and another one in the fall. However, as April drew closer the money seemed to be less and the Cabinet postponed the raise to the fall. A few days ago it decided to put it off until January next year.
A teacher earns about 300-400 euros in Romania.