The Latvian Education and Science Workers’ Union (LIZDA) reported that information about the demands of the pedagogues’ strike and the lack of funding for the education sector could have been “incorrectly provided” to Anda Čakša (JV), the minister in charge of the education sector.
The Latvian Education and Science Workers’ Union (LIZDA) reported that information about the demands of the pedagogues’ strike and the lack of funding for the education sector could have been “incorrectly provided” to Anda Čakša (JV), the minister in charge of the education sector.
The chairman of LIZDA, Inga Vanaga, told the LETA agency that some employees of the Ministry of Education and Culture may have “represented the information incorrectly” or “failed to provide essential information” to the minister. Vanaga did not mention specific persons against whom the specific accusations are directed. The teachers’ union has decided to inform Chakša “about such situations”.
The teachers’ union also intends to discuss with the minister the conclusion of an agreement on “ensuring peace in the education and science sector”. The trade union is interested in a better social dialogue, said Vanaga, continuing to insist that only part of the strike’s demands had been met.
In the event that Čakša does not agree with the union on important issues, then a meeting of the LIZDA council will be called to decide on further action, however repeated protests in the summer are not planned, Vanaga said.
As reported, this week also after the meeting with the Prime Minister Krišjāni Kariņa (JV), LIZDA and the Ministry of Education and Culture had different visions regarding the fulfillment of the demands of the teachers’ strike.
Vanaga reproached the Ministry of Education and Culture that the calculations made by it contain errors “from 0.2 to 3 million”, while the calculated funding for some areas of education differs by as much as 50% from what was previously accepted by the government. The head of the trade union also expressed her confusion as to why LIZDA has not been fully involved in the discussions of the Ministry of Education and Culture regarding the balancing of teachers’ workloads in the future.
The minister of education had a different opinion, saying that instead of promoting the quality of education, “hair splitting” is currently taking place.
In Chaksha’s view, the main issue on which the parties involved cannot agree is who is the employer of the pedagogues, re-emphasizing the importance of local governments in the distribution of the targeted grant. Čakša pointed out the employers’ “various interpretations” of the amount of salary for teachers, even though the “frame” or target grant is given equally to all municipalities. “Municipal governments play a very important role in maintaining the quality of education,” the minister emphasized.
On April 21, the government approved the amendments submitted by the Ministry of Education and Culture to the Cabinet of Ministers’ regulations, which provide that from September 1 of this year, the lowest hourly rate for teachers, with the exception of pre-school education teachers, will be 8.50 euros.
On the other hand, the lowest wage rate for pedagogues of preschool educational institutions is planned to be 1240 euros from September 1, or 15.8% more than last school year. The salary increase schedule for teachers envisages reducing the inequality between the lowest wage rate of preschool and general education teachers, which has arisen due to the different workloads – the workload of preschool teachers is 40 working hours per week, while the workload of other educators is 36 working hours per week as of September 1.
In order to ensure the increase of the lowest hourly rate, it was decided to allocate this year 9,039,833 euros from the state budget funds for unforeseen cases.
Despite this decision of the government, LIZDA started a three-day strike on April 24, accusing the government of not fulfilling all the demands of the strike and making the final decision later than it had promised. Before the strike, LIZDA basically demanded to increase teachers’ salaries and change the distribution of workloads.
At the start of the strike, LIZDA and the Ministry of Education and Culture had different opinions on whether the state had fulfilled the demands of the teachers’ strike – the Ministry of Education and Culture insisted that the requirements had been met because the requested funding was provided for raising the lowest wage rates, while the Ministry of Education and Culture insisted that the supplement was also needed for those educators who already receive higher salaries.
LIZDA threatened to extend the strike, insisting that the government had not fulfilled all the demands of the strike. Under these conditions, the parties continued negotiations.
On April 26, the government decided to allocate 4,168,067 euros in additional targeted grants to local governments to increase teachers’ salaries in order to meet the last demands of the teachers’ strike.
In order to ensure an increase in the salary of those educators whose salary rate is currently higher than the minimum, the Ministry of Education and Culture has estimated that it is necessary to increase the cost of one student by 3.38%. Amendments to the regulations provide that the average cost of 1st-6th grade students will be increased from 105.09 euros to 108.64 euros, the average cost of 7th-9th grade students – from 135.41 euros to 139.99 euros, while 10 .-for 12th grade students – from 145.51 euros to 150.43 euros.
Jānis Salminņš, advisor for analytics in Čakša, is convinced that the government has allocated 1,976,776 euros more than would be necessary to fulfill the strike demands. This is confirmed by the calculations made by the ministry.
According to representatives of the Ministry of Education and Culture, the allocated funding will also be sufficient for the salary of new teachers, as vacant teacher positions were also taken into account in the calculations.
At the beginning of June, the LIZDA Council requested to adopt by June 30 amendments to all the regulations of the Cabinet of Ministers regarding the financing procedures for preschool, general basic and secondary, professional, professional orientation, interest, as well as special education teachers.
Kārlis Strautiņš, the parliamentary secretary of the Ministry of Education and Science (MES), has recognized the need to make amendments to the regulations of the Cabinet of Ministers regarding the financing procedure, because otherwise it is not possible to ensure the allocation of funding to groups of teachers according to the calculations made by the MES. Vanaga stated that LIZDA received a letter from the ministry on June 5, which stated that it is not necessary to make amendments.
The Ministry is said to have offered to make amendments after August 15, to which the trade union categorically did not agree, because local governments should already know whether there will be enough funding to know what salary to offer new teachers.
Taking into account that amendments were not made to the mentioned MK regulations, LIZDA demanded the resignation of Chaksha. The minister rejected the resignation request, saying that it had no basis as the demands of the strike had been met.
