Boc Government discusses standardization of teacher salaries

Premiere Boc said at the end of the government’s meeting that Romania today cannot afford to pay a 50 percent increase in the teachers’ salaries.

Emil Boc said that the government has discussed at first reading a draft bill to be stop the effect of the increases in the salaries granted to teachers by court decision, which will be sent for approval to the parliament, after receiving the validation of the Economic and Social Council (ESC).

The Premier stated that the decision regarding the adoption of the legislative act would take place only after the necessary approvals are be added, but ‘there is also the possibility of accountability.’

Boc stated that increasing in the teachers’ salaries by 50 percent would mean an additional financial burden of 500 million Euros only for the current year, money that could be obtained only through external credit, which would compromise the budgetary deficit target and the country’s financial stability.

‘At the risk of being unpopular, we can only give as much as have,’ the Prime Minister also highlighted.

Unions reject act providing standardization of salaries

Previously, the unions were informed by the Education Minister Daniel Funeriu that there has been prepared a bill for the standardization of the teachers’ salaries, so as those who have won in court this salary increase to not benefit of these amounts and to get paid equally as the other teachers.

The Secretary General of the Federation of the Free Unions in Education, Liviu Pop, along with his colleagues rejected this initiative, according to Radio Romania Actualităţi editor, Petruţa Obrejan.

‘The Minister wishes to submit a draft law after which the government to adopt an ordinance or a government decision by which all the court decision would be removed which are currently implemented or are to be won, so that the salaries should be paid at a lower level, meaning to be reduced by 33 percent from what the courts require in Romania’, Liviu Pop said.

The union leader argued that this bill would be challenged in al Romanian and European courts, because the unions believed that a judicial sentence cannot be modified by another forum in Romania.

‘Therefore we categorically reject this bill and we will certainly do anything possible to prevent its application, and at the same time all those violating the court sentences risk to be joined in court for abuse of office’, Liviu Pop added.

The Secretary General of the Federation of Free Trade Unions in Education claimed that according to the Minister of Education, the principle of the salary standardization is low for those in whose lawsuits sentences have been passed and absent for those in whose lawsuits no sentences have been pronounced so far.

‘In a concrete case, as Suceava - Botoşani , where people’s individual employment contracts are differed from the rest of the country, their revenues will fall by 33 percent according to a bill that the government wants to adopt today’, Liviu Pop said.

He stated that a teacher from Suceava and Botoşani, who last year won the June-July-August lawsuits, eventually obtained a 33 percent higher salary than the teachers in the rest of the country, because the Salary Bill was applied following two unitary payment lawsuits won by the unions.

‘In the remaining counties, the second process is largely on the role, the first lawsuit was won, the moment that process is gained, the reinstatement into the working permit takes place with an increase of 33 percent.’

‘The Education Minister wants the salaries for colleges in Botoşani and Suceava to be reduced by 33 percent, and all our other colleagues who are to gain the lawsuits to be removed from the revenue and salary to remain the same’, Liviu Popa said.

Translated by: Iulia Florescu
MA student, MTTLC, Bucharest University