Education Workers Protest in Belgrade, Demanding Higher Salaries, Safety in Schools

BETAPHOTO/MILAN TIMOTIC

Education Workers Protest in Belgrade, Demanding Higher Salaries, Safety in Schools

Education workers protested in downtown Belgrade, on Sept. 16, promising not to give up on their demands for improving their financial status, insisting also on legal guarantees for safety in schools.

The rally was organized by representative education unions, dissatisfied with the Government's promises regarding their financial status and safety. A BETA reporter said the rally had ended after about an hour and a half, and that traffic resumed around 1 p.m. in the part of Nemanjina Street that had been blocked.

Four representative education unions had announced an all-day strike in schools across Serbia on Sept. 16, dissatisfied with the outcome of negotiations with the Government of Serbia regarding salary increases. The Ministry of Education announced that lessons were completely suspended or shortened in 1,013 out of 1,294 elementary schools, as well as in 407 out of 478 high schools in Serbia.

Valentina Ilic, the president of the Serbian Education Union, announced that education workers from all over Serbia would gather for another protest rally in Belgrade in two weeks if the Government failed to respond to their demands within the fortnight.  Speaking for BETA during the protest in front of the Ministry of Education in Belgrade, she criticized the planned differences in salary increases between teaching and non-teaching staff, warning that they would create "a kind of divide" among employees.