More than 1,000 teachers gathered outside the government office in central Vilnius on Thursday amid an ongoing strike. A group of teachers arrived in the Lithuanian capital on foot from Klaipėda.
Led by Andrius Navickas, members of the Lithuanian Education Workers’ Union is demanding, among other things, a faster pay rise for teachers.
“I worked at the school for 16 years, I loved my job, I loved my parents and my students, but what is happening at the school, I will no longer allow it to happen to me. Something has to change at school, so I am here today standing up for my colleagues who are intimidated, scared, because not everyone can strike, so I am here for them,” Vilhelmina Gerulaitė, a former teacher who came to Vilnius with the teachers from Kulautuva in Kaunas District, told BNS.
After the rally, the teachers are gathering at the Teachers’ House to discuss the further course of the strike. Navickas says it will then be decided whether to interrupt the strike until the end of November.
As the government has already submitted the 2024 spending bill to the parliament, the trade union also mulls staging a protest outside the Seimas. On Tuesday, Navickas met with members of the political groups in the parliament to discuss teachers’ demands.
The opposition Social Democrats said they had registered a budget proposal to raise teachers’ pay next year in line with the Navickas union’s proposal: giving two 15-percent pay rises in January and September.
The government proposes raising pay for teachers by 10 percent in January and September.
The trade union is not happy with such plans, which is why several thousand Lithuanian teachers have been on strike for two weeks.
The Finance Ministry says it does not have the financial capacity to offer more funds to raise teachers’ salaries at a faster pace.
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