The Lithuanian Education Workers’ Trade Union (LŠDPS) has on Monday suspended its strike until the adoption of the state budget on December 5.
“This is a similar break to the one we had after the first wave. Now, the teachers are back in schools, back in classes,” Andrius Navickas, head of LŠDPS, told BNS on Monday.
“We will use that break for discussions with teachers on how to organise and invite teachers to take part in the next wave and also for meetings with MPs. Then we will strike again on December 5,” he added.
According to Navickas, there is no point in striking continuously until December 5, as both children and their parents would suffer.
Suspended in mid-October, teachers’ strike was resumed last Wednesday.
According to the National Education Agency, more than 2,000 education workers took part in the strike last week. It was resumed after the union and the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport failed to agree on teachers’ pay, workload, and class size reduction.
In next year’s budget, the government is proposing to increase teachers’ salaries in two stages: by 10 percent from January and by another 10 percent from September, to bring the average teacher’s salary up to 130 percent of the national average salary.
An additional 387 million euros is allocated in next year’s budget for the implementation of the education agreement.
The LŠDPS, however, is asking for two 15-percent pay rises next year. The ministry says there is no financial capacity to offer a higher pay increase.
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