Romanian Teachers Start Strike for Higher Pay

More than 150,000 teachers in Romania went on a strike on Monday demanding higher salaries as the governing coalition parties prepare to replace Nicolae Ciuca, from the National Liberal Party, PNL, as Prime Minister with Marcel Ciolacu, leader of the Social Democratic Party, PSD.

Teachers will be joined in the strike by non-teaching staff from schools. It is the third large-scale strike in Romanian education in the last 30 years.

The strike was triggered after the unions and Prime Minister Ciuca failed to reach a compromise on Sunday evening after two rounds of negotiations.

"The government's offer is the same one we had a few days ago, nothing else," said Simion Hancescu, leader of the Federation of Free Trade Unions in Education, FSLI.

The government said it has offered trade unions financial incentives for beginners and for tenured teaching staff from academic units located in disadvantaged areas, but also pay increases for non-teaching staff. But the proposals were deemed insufficient by trade unions.

Prime Minister Ciuca said the only ones who will lose if the strike takes place are the parents and students, who will be in a complicated situation from Monday.

But Marius Nistor, president of the education union "Spru Haret", said the overnment should come up with clearer salary increases and a specific calendar.

"Even if there are good intentions, we are only discussing intentions; we are talking about the future wage law, which will start to be negotiated only from July 15," he said.

"The wage law may be adopted at the end of October or 2023, as applicable from January 1, 2024. However, this is still not known, because there has been no clear answer [from the government] if a certain salary scale will be...