ROMANIA: Teachers’ Pay Hike, just 17 pc

The premier on Saturday called upon MPs to urgently discuss draft laws tabled by executive. Heads of county directorates who delay salary payments to be dismissed.
The government sticks to its decision to increase teachers’ salaries by only 17 per cent under the applicable legislation and to schedule the payment of additional remuneration won in court for later on, as the executive cannot afford renouncing economic stability, PM Emil Boc said, quoted by Mediafax. Boc added that results of future economic growth would be reflected in people’s income but “obviously not today.” Boc also said pay inconsistencies were being caused by both court judgments granting education employees a 50 per cent rise (according to a law passed by Parliament in the autumn of 2008, although the government only accepted to give teachers 17 per cent pay rise in 2008 and has already abrogated the 33 per cent difference by normative acts), and by including bonuses unrecognised by current legislation into collective bargaining agreements.

The new draft Education Law currently under public debate is scheduled to start being discussed by the legislative assembly today. The opposition, however, is boycotting parliamentary debates on education. PSD has asked the Chamber of Deputies’ Standing Bureau not to hold the debate, claiming that the Chamber speaker’s initiative in that respect was ‘unacceptable’. Liberals are also boycotting education debates in Parliament and PNL deputies’ leader Calin Popescu Tariceanu wrote to chamber Speaker Roberta Anastase on Friday to let her know the reasons which ‘prevented’ PNL from attending the sitting. In his letter, Tariceanu points out that, while appreciating Anastase’s concerns about the state of education, he ‘was most seriously reserved’ about the initiative. On the other hand, Iasi ‘Alexandru Ioan Cuza’ University’s leading Senate on Friday urged the government to postpone the adoption of the new Education Act which it describes as ‘incoherent and ambiguous’ and ‘restricting academic discretion’.

All in all, university rectors rejected the draft law, along with the unions, students, NGOs. On the other hand, the draft law is supported by president Traian Basescu, according to the site dedicated to the debates on the education issue, i.e. www.unpasinainte.edu.ro.

Education Minister Daniel Funeriu said during a meeting with NGOs on Friday that he was determined to carry out the process of preparing a new Education Law. “The Romanian society clearly needs a new framework of development for its education and, clearly, there are people who describe themselves as representatives of a certain part of Romanian society who don’t actually represent that,” the minister said, according to Agerpres.

Approximately 1 000 people participated in a Pre-university Education Trade Union (SIP) protest rally demanding their court-awarded pay rise and denouncing new draft Education Act in Galati on Friday. Almost 11 000 teachers, members of the ‘Spiru Haret’ County Education Union of Suceava, and of the ‘Bucovina’ Union of Radauti, affiliated with the Federation of Free Trade Unions in Education (FSLI), also held a two-hour strike on Friday when they remained in classrooms without teaching.

The prime-minister on Saturday said the heads of county labour and finance directorates who, out of incompetence or laziness, would delay salary payments, inducing the idea that the state has run out of money, would be dismissed. He also told prefects they would be penalized if they do not act to prevent such situations as, the PM says, the state has enough money to pay wages. During a video-conference with prefects on Saturday, the PM called upon Parliament to discuss the most important bills tabled by the Executive - the Fiscal Responsibility Law, the Pension Law and the Penal and Civil Procedure Codes - as matters of urgency. Boc underlined that Parliament was supposed to pass the Fiscal Responsibility Law by the end of March, while the Pension Law as well as the two Procedure Codes – Penal and Civil – have to be passed before Parliament recess.

Source: Nine o'Clock