Romanian Education Unions Frown On Govt’s Budget Savings Plan, Threaten Protests

The Federation said in a press release Friday that savings to the education budget by scrapping over 19,000 jobs and operating constant negative budget revisions are way above the quota of spending cuts stipulated for the education sector.

Union leader Teodor Firtonea said forcing teachers to take unpaid vacation breaches young people’s fundamental rights to education and severely affects pupils who will take exams at the end of the school year.

Union leaders in the education sector on Friday refused to meet with Education Ministry officials to discuss the issue of unpaid leave stipulated in the unitary pay law for public sector staff.

The Alliance of Public Sector Employees convened Thursday to decide on further protests in the upcoming period, displeased that the Constitutional Court approved the unitary wage law and the law organizing the state’s institutions, which were both promulgated by President Traian Basescu.

Unionists Thursday decided not to sign the individual agreements complying with law-regulated 15.5% decrease in wages, adding it reserves the right to stage protests in Bucharest.

Last week, the Constitutional Court ruled that the law on the reorganization of certain public authorities and the public sector unitary wage law are constitutional.