The Lithuanian Education Workers’ Union (LŠDPS) confirmed on Monday that it is launching an “actual” strike at schools and other educational establishments on September 29. The union held a warning strike last Friday, when teachers across the country sat out two periods.
“Seeing that most of the problems are not being solved but rather concealed behind interpretations of numbers and facts, [and] understanding that the situation in the education sector is becoming increasingly complex and that the Education, Science and Sport Ministry and its subordinate institutions fail to show proper leadership, the LŠDPSU has decided to call an actual strike, a step that is very difficult but meets the expectations of the majority of teachers,” the union said in a statement on Monday.
Each school will be informed who on its staff are taking part in the strike, it added.
The LŠDPS, one of the teachers’ trade unions, staged a warning strike last Friday and is expected to hold the next round of negotiations with the Education Ministry on Tuesday.
The union is demanding, among other things, a 20-percent increase in teachers’ pay from September and a further 30-percent rise from January, along with a reduction in class sizes.
Andrius Navickas, the LŠDPS leader, said last Friday that the union was ready to continue the talks up to the planned strike date and to call off the strike “in the early morning of the same day” if a deal is reached.
Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė has reiterated that teachers’ salaries will be raised to 130 percent of Lithuania’s average wage next year, as stated in the political parties’ agreement, and that it will be done in two stages – from January and September.
She says that some of the union’s demands are impossible to meet.
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