Romanian Teachers Threaten To Freeze School Year Over Wages, Job Cuts

Union leaders met Wednesday with education minister Daniel Funeriu, who said the ministry has enough money to pay teachers' wages this year under the unitary wage law and according to legislation in force.

Constantin Ciosu of the National Education Federation union said the 15,000 education system employees to be laid off this fall will require a social protection program, similar to the one applied for the country's railway companies, which are slashing over 10,000 jobs this year.

"The system will lose 30-35% of its employees as of September 1, and these people must get severance pay," Ciosu said.

He also said he asked the education minister to pass an emergency resolution to pay all teachers a 50% wage hike that was promised by law and never applied, not just to teachers who won lawsuits for these raises.

"There are tens of thousands of lawsuits teachers have won in court and they need to get wages according to law 221/2008. We have asked the minister to pass an order, as it was done in 2001, and generalize court rulings for all teaching staff. There is a precedent, so it's perfectly legal" Ciosu said.

In October 2008, the Romanian Parliament enacted law 221/2008, promulgated by President Traian Basescu, which provided for a 50% increase in teachers' salaries. During the parliamentary elections that followed, firm promises were made that the law would be observed but, due to the economic crisis, these promises were compromised.

After one year of non-application, the government drafted a national education law, which it adopted without any parliamentary debate in September 2009. Nevertheless, the Constitutional Court declared the law as unconstitutional on the grounds that education as a whole may only be regulated by an organic law, "which requires the participation of all social segments concerned, including civil society".

Gheorghe Isvoranu, head of the Spiru Haret union, said unionists aren't happy with the results of Wednesday's meeting and a calendar of protests would be established shortly.

"There will be protests, we're thinking of boycotting exams and even freezing the school year, which we've never done before. Wages have been lowered and we don't know what the new education law has in store for us, because it was never discussed with us," Isvoranu said.

The education minister said a new meeting with unions has been scheduled in two weeks.

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