Romanian Education Unions Call For Pay Raise Law To Be Applied

The unions agreed with the Constitutional Court’s decision to declare unconstitutional the Government Emergency Ordinance 151/2008, which blocked their pay raises. FSLI education union leader Aurel Cornea told MEDIAFAX Tuesday that the decision was to be expected, but if teachers still do not receive the raise provided for by Law 221/2008, FSLI will charge Romania with breaching Convention 95 on wages and turn to the International Labor Organization and the European Court of Human Rights.

Cornea said Law 221 must be applied before the public sector unitary wage law enters force.

FEN education union secretary general Constantin Ciosu told MEDIAFAX Tuesday that if Emergency Ordinance 151/2008 has been ruled unconstitutional, then Law 221 should be applied. “However, I believe the current Government will find a way to keep postponing the application of this law,” Ciosu said.

Romania’s Constitutional Court decided Tuesday that the provisions of Government Emergency Ordinance 151/2008 regarding wage hikes for teachers, which blocked the 50% pay raise for teachers, are unconstitutional.

The Constitutional Court on Tuesday admitted two exceptions of unconstitutionality of provisions of article I, sections 2 and 3, of Government Emergency Ordinance 151/2008 raised in several trials involving unions and schools.

Thus, article I, section 2, stipulated that, during 2008, the basic salaries of education employees, set through the provisions of Government Emergency Ordinance 68/2004, would be gradually hiked in 2008 and 2009.
 
The draft law approving emergency decree 151/2008 was tacitly adopted by the Romanian Senate mid-March this year, after the 30-day deadline, during which senators had to vote on the normative act, expired.
 
On October 24, 2008, Romanian President Traian Basescu passed Law 221 increasing teachers’ salaries by 50% as of November 1. Law 221/2008 was unanimously voted by senators and deputies.
 
The government, however, decided four days later, through emergency decree 136, that the deadline for the enforcement of the law hiking teachers’ salaries by 50% be put off until April 1, 2009. The Constitutional Court subsequently declared the decree unconstitutional.
 
Romania’s former liberal government decided in November 2008, through an emergency decree, that teachers’ salaries will be gradually increased by up to 28%, in two rounds, respectively on March 1 and on September 1, 2009.