Teachers strike for increase in education budget

On 4 December 2007, teachers in the Czech Republic went on strike in demand of increased public spending on education. Although the government proposed to increase the education budget by almost CZK 1 billion (€38 million), the trade unions considered this amount to be insufficient. The strike is the first major industrial action taken by the country’s teachers since September 2003.

Government proposal to increase budget

Since the spring of 2007, the Czech-Moravian Trade Union of Workers in Education (Českomoravský odborový svaz pracovníků školství, ČMOS PŠ) has been running a campaign for increased public spending on education (CZ0709019I). The government’s original budget for the education department for 2008 was CZK 118.3 billion (about €4.5 billion as at 21 December 2007), which, according to the trade unions, would mean insufficient funding for teachers’ pay, school equipment and further education for teachers. Therefore, ČMOS PŠ announced a strike alert on 28 August 2007.

During the autumn of 2007, the trade unions entered negotiations with government representatives and individual parliamentary deputies; the Chamber of Deputies (Poslanecká sněmovna Parlamentu České republiky, PSP ČR) responded by promising to increase the education budget by CZK 1 billion (€38 million). However, the trade unions are not satisfied with this amount, as they had demanded a budget increase of CZK 2.5 billion (€95 million).

Trade union response

In response to the government’s suggestion, the Chair of ČMOS PŠ, František Dobšík, stated:

It’s not a billion, it’s CZK 933 million (about €35.4 million), which is just a sticking plaster for us. We are not taking the schoolchildren hostage – we are the hostages in this department and we have been for a long time now. This government is the first one in a long time that has touched teachers’ pay and wants teachers to bear the cost of reform.

The strike therefore could not be averted. The protest represented the first major industrial action taken by the country’s teachers since September 2003, when they mobilised to safeguard their full ‘13th month’s and 14th month’s pay’ bonus.

Increasing the budget by almost CZK 1 billion represents about a 4% pay increase for teachers. However, the trade unions are not happy that the expected public finance reform and higher inflation forecast will actually mean that real wages in education will most likely fall. Teachers’ pay is already below the Czech average wage, according to Mr Dobšík. He argued:

The average pay in education is approximately CZK 19,000 (€721) for the first half of 2007; the average Czech wage is about CZK 21,000 (€797). Teachers have the same working time as all other employees, that is, 40 hours a week; they have eight weeks’ holiday and that is all. During other holiday periods they carry out tasks set by the principal.

Prominence of strike

The strike affected mostly state schools. Private schools, of which there are several hundred, supported the strike but the majority of these did not participate. Church-run schools also refrained from getting involved in the strike. Teachers at almost 6,000–7,000 kindergarten, primary and secondary schools went on strike, representing more than half of the 10,500 regional school facilities. In total, about 128,000 school workers joined the strike, according to ČMOS PŠ. Furthermore, around 600 teachers took part in a demonstration in front of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (Ministerstvo školství, mládeže a tělovýchovy České republiky, MŠMT ČR).

Most schools stayed closed in the Hradec Králové region of Bohemia in the west and in the Jeseník region of Moravia in the east of the country – 80% and 90% respectively. However, some schools did not take part in the strike for various reasons: for example, the non-existence of trade unions in the workplace, a sense of responsibility towards the children and their parents who had no alternative activities available, and doubts among teachers about whether the strike would have any impact on the financing of education.

Soňa Veverková, Research Institute for Labour and Social Affairs