Teachers in primary and secondary schools who are on strike are the only public sector workers in Serbia who did not receive their February salary, or the amount was humiliatingly reduced. Financial, legal and moral support is coming to them from all sides, and educators say that it would mean the most to them if colleagues from other state institutions joined them in the fight.
Dusan Bojanic, teacher geography on strike, he spent a good part of February on the road. He followed the example and idea of the students and joined the educational column of pedestrians who walk for the rights of teachers, but also the column of former students who are now on faculties. For the first part of his February salary, he received 2184 dinars and 87 paras.
"I'm walking even now while we're talking," says Bojanic for "Vreme". So far, he has traveled about 300 kilometers. "Students have brilliantly designed these walks. Now the whole of Serbia is getting to know them, and it's their turn to see us teachers, the people whose salary they stole. I walk to help myself and others". Bojanić teaches geography in Serbian and Slovak at the elementary school in the town of Aradac near Zrenjanin, but also at the Zrenjanin school attended by children with developmental disabilities. As he walks from Petrovac to Belgrade, where a large student protest is being organized on March 15, he says he receives calls and messages of support. A large number of colleagues from the profession and professors from the faculty offer financial help, and he was also called by the parents of the children he teaches. "Money as such does not mean much to me, but it means to me that our parents are with us, that they support us and offer some kind of satisfaction", he adds. "I would like the others to be with us in order to spread solidarity, but also to share this burden of responsibility and pressure that we face every day."
SOLIDARNOOST(I)
Citizens have decided to collect money for teachers' salaries, and support is coming from all sides.
Educators in Čačak, a city where almost no primary and secondary school teachers have been out of work since January 21, were contacted by health workers with the desire to help them financially. Calls are coming from the diaspora, many are contacted directly by parents who want to make up for lost money without any hesitation. The informal IT community is also active and gathers several thousand members: they go to organized protests and support students and educators. They themselves established a fund through which money will be paid directly to teachers. The system is made so that the delegated teachers represent collectives on strike. They will act as mediators between donors and teachers and will provide data on the number of vulnerable people and the exact amount of reduced wages. Donors are invited to join as many as possible on the network called "Solidarity for Education". The system is designed in such a way that the possibility of abuse is minimized, while data security is maximized. The names of individuals are not published, but only the schools that received support, the IT community states, adding that the payments will be made in stages, and based on the number of donors and the amounts specified in the application, the first contingent of connections with teachers is formed. Colleagues from the university also came to the rescue, so professors created a fund in which they collect money for teachers. A large number of faculties adopted the decision that five percent of university professors' salaries go to teachers.
"We will certainly see that the money goes first to the most vulnerable colleagues, single parents or families where both parents are teachers on strike, and there are quite a few of them," Aleksandar Vinić from the Association of Schools on Strike, who is a teacher in Čačak, told "Vreme". He did not receive a single dinar from his salary. "We are not sure if there will be enough money to settle the most vulnerable, or if there will be funds for other teachers as well, we will see," he adds. "Every day new people call, ask where they can pay money, they want to send us words of support and to persevere. It means a lot to all of us."
SHOULDER TO SHOULDER
The teachers say that colleagues from the same branch, professors of the faculty, contact them individually to express their solidarity. However, Dušan Bojanić "would like them to stop working so that we can share this pressure that educators have been facing in recent months", while the new president of the Forum of Belgrade High Schools, Ana Dimitrijević, told "Vreme" that the other workers of the state sector "shouldn't complain about the teachers, but join them in the strike". "You know how, we were aware of the possible consequences when we entered into a kind of civil disobedience," Dimitrijević told "Vreme". "Educators made the most sacrifices, and it means to us that people want to help." But it would mean a lot more to us if more professions also stopped working, if postal workers, EPS, GSP, for example, did what we did." The professors of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Physics in Belgrade have already agreed with the idea of joining the others. Elektrotehnički went on strike on January 21, just one day after colleagues from schools, demanding full fulfillment of all student demands. As a sign of support for students and educators, the Faculty of Physics voted by the majority of all employees to go on strike from March 3. Ivan Simić, a professor at the Faculty of Architecture in Belgrade, thinks that the example of colleagues from ETF and the Faculty of Physics should be followed. "I believe that it is a matter of elementary solidarity with the teachers that we, as members of the same profession, see off this strike," Simić told "Vreme". For Simic, the fact that professors will give five percent of their own salary for teachers is "a good symbolic first step, but only a first step". At some faculties, the fact that they have a large number of non-teaching staff who would potentially vote against the strike is a valid argument. At some faculties, according to "Vremen" information, they even tried to organize a solidarity strike, but they did not succeed, precisely because of the non-teaching staff.
Ana Vuković Vimić from the Faculty of Agriculture tells "Vreme" that "we have talked with the students about the professors supporting the teachers with their own strike and thus taking personal responsibility and putting additional pressure on the state". "This is not a situation where professors are just protecting themselves, but a better way to help education is being sought, and I think that at this moment it is best for professors to participate in compensating their colleagues for lost earnings," says Vuković Vimić for "Vreme". "We are not sure that the majority of the non-teaching staff would agree to a strike, and at least this way the professors keep student support under control."
While primary and secondary school teachers are not paid, the Parliament of Serbia will increase the salaries of faculty professors. The Rebel University Initiative, which has more than 2000 employees in higher education and science, said that this disparity is "an attempt to cause conflict between employees in institutions of different levels of education, just at the moment when they are starting to act united."
photo: marija janković...
LAWSUITS
Geography teacher Dušan Bojanić reported the theft to the police. His salary disappeared.
He reported to the police department in Zrenjanin that on March 6, his personal income, compensation for his master's degree and past work in the elementary schools where he works were stolen. "I know the perpetrator of this act, and that is the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Serbia. I believe that I did not deserve to have the money I earned in the mentioned schools stolen", Bojanić wrote in the application and specified that the material damage was worth 50000 dinars. In Bojanić's complaint about the theft, there is the most symbolism, but Minister of Education Slavica Đukić Dejanović is expecting a really serious criminal complaint.
The Independent Union of Serbian Educators has filed criminal charges against those responsible for finances in school administrations and the Minister of Education Slavica Đukić Dejanović due to reduced salaries, and new legal steps are being announced - lawsuits for damages. Lawsuits will be filed if the state does not correct the potential error on March 21 and does not pay the teachers with the second part of their salary what they were not paid in the first part. Educators have been on legal strike since September 2024, during which period they received their full salary. Now the Ministry has decided to reduce the salary of the workers according to criteria that do not exist in the Law on Strike, because it is an outdated legal solution from 1996. According to this Law, educators do not have the right to completely suspend classes, but can only shorten classes to 30 minutes. The state should therefore initiate disciplinary proceedings against them, and not reduce their salary at its own discretion.
School principals can also expect potential lawsuits, because lawyers believe that many of them have acted contrary to the Law on the Basics of the Education and Training System, which regulates the authority and responsibility of institution principals. The directors would be sued because they were aware that they had implemented the minister's illegal decision. Many lawyers and jurists, as well as organizations that offer free legal assistance in a possible dispute with the state, contact the addresses of the associated educators, says Aleksandar Vinić. He advises colleagues not to sign salary decisions, at least those who have received them.
A DISASTER IN THE LAND OF TEACHERS
Teachers will both regret and survive one salary. Ana Dimitrijević, an English teacher at the Ninth High School in Belgrade, says that educators will "spend off" not only through the salaries of their spouses, but also through the additional work they always have to do in order to survive. She adds with dark humor that "we live in a consumer society anyway, so we all need to reduce everything a little". However, Dušan Bojanić wonders how they will continue, how the endangered educators will do if they do not receive their third, or sixth or twelfth salary. He doesn't care much about himself. "I have a garden in my house, that's enough for me to survive," he says. "Just so that some plague does not attack her".
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