The Preporod School Union and three teachers' groups on Saturday demanded higher and fairer coefficients for the calculation of wages in the school sector at a protest held in Zagreb.

Education sector employees from all over the country rallied in downtown Zagreb, demanding higher pay coefficients for their sector.

They said that the government had insulted them by setting the coefficient for the calculation of a teacher’s salary at 2.01, demanding a coefficient of 2.35 and noting that the government had promised equal pay for equal work with the wage reform in the civil and public sectors.

Even though the government’s regulation defining posts and coefficients in civil and public services has already been adopted, Preporod leader Zeljko Stipic said that they would not give up on their demands.

The government has spent billions of euros to raise the wages of civil and public servants but school employees have been given less than the other employees, Stipic said.

“They got crumbs,” he said, citing pay coefficients of school employees and comparing them with those in other services.

“Teacher 2.01, police vehicle fleet manager 2.35. School cleaner 1.06, other cleaners 1.15. School secretary 2.01, secretary elsewhere 2.35. Teacher 2.01, ranger 2.10. Teacher 2.01, police academy teacher 2.30,” Stipic said, with the protesters carrying banners highlighting the differences in the pay coefficients.

He went on to say that once the government regulation goes into force, wages in the education system will not go up by 30%, as claimed by the government, but by “barely 15%”.

Speaking on behalf of the three teachers’ groups, Tamara Šoic said she had a message for future ministers. “Dear future ministers, whoever you are, look at these people and remember this picture and do not make us take to the streets again in the next term… we have been exposed to pressure from agencies, inspections, principals, parents, the public. We want, for once, someone to be on our side. We want a minister who knows what problems we are faced with,” she said.

Gov’t discriminates against education system

The two-hour protest was addressed by school employees, who said that the government had discriminated against the education system in the wage reform.

Zvonimir Fortuna, a secretary at the Vatroslav Lisinski Music School, asked why secretaries, chief accounting officers, cleaners and cooks in schools are worth less than their counterparts who work elsewhere, while Dajana Prekodravac of the Secerana Primary School asked if school employees had to protest every time to get decent pay.

The protest was also supported by Matija Kroflin, secretary-general of the Independent Union of Science and Higher Education (NSZVO), which organised a recent protest outside the government’s offices together with Preporod.

Kroflin said that this time the union did not have the support of its members to co-organise today’s rally but that that did not mean they were satisfied with the government regulation.

On Monday we will announce activities which we will be implementing in order to try to influence the regulation. The prime minister himself has said that it is not written in stone, Kroflin said.