The leader of the union of secondary school teachers, Branimir Mihalinec, said on Monday that the ongoing strike in primary and secondary schools would go on because talks with the government on an increase in the job complexity index for teachers had not continued, and he announced new protests for Wednesday and Thursday.

Mihalinec said that at the next round of talks, which according to Labour and Pension System Minister Josip Aladrovic should be held on Tuesday, the government was likely to make an offer which the unions would convey to their members to vote on.

He also announced, for Wednesday and Thursday, protest rallies to be held outside the government offices in St. Mark’s Square.

Two unions of primary and secondary school teachers have been on strike for 22 days, and they demand that the government increase their wages by raising their job complexity index to 1.406 percentage points.

According to the striking unions’ leaders, teachers were today on strike in Split-Dalmatia and Pozega-Slavonia counties, with the turnout in primary schools being 97.27% and in secondary schools 90.73%.

On Tuesday, the rotating strike moves to Krapina-Zagorje, Varazdin and Medjimurje counties and the striking unions will be joined by the Independent Union of Research and Higher Education Employees, which means that faculties and their staff would not be working.

Commenting on Science and Education Minister Blazenka Divjak’s announcement that education would be a priority of Croatia’s EU presidency, the leader of the union of primary school teachers, Sanja Sprem, wondered how one could talk about investing in education when the government did not want to increase its investments in public services by a single kuna.

Commenting on the government’s recent adoption of a regulation on the titles of positions and job complexity indices at the State Inspectorate, Mihalinec said that it was absurd that the job complexity index of a spokesman at the State Inspectorate was higher than that of a teacher.