Education unions strongly resist government cutbacks

At the end of 2009, the Romanian government published an emergency ordinance, which introduced substantial cuts in public funding for primary and secondary schools. Education trade unions reacted strongly against the cuts and, on 11 January 2010, challenged the constitutionality of the ordinance before the Ombudsman. The emergency ordinance also provides for the abolition of certain concessions, funding cuts for scientific research and income tax on small pensions.

Background

In October 2008, the Romanian Parliament (Parlamentul României) enacted Law No. 221/2008, promulgated by the President of Romania, Traian Băsescu, on 24 October 2008, which provided for a 50% increase in teachers’ salaries.

During the parliamentary elections that followed, firm promises were made that the law would be observed (RO0811019I). However, due to the economic crisis, these promises were compromised and, after one year of non-application, the government drafted a national education law, which it adopted under its own responsibility without any parliamentary debate on 18 September 2009. Nevertheless, the Constitutional Court of Romania (Curtea Constituţională a României, CCR) declared the law as unconstitutional on the grounds that education as a whole may only be regulated by an organic law, ‘which requires the participation of all social segments concerned, including civil society’. Another reason why the CCR repealed the law was because it was due to take effect in September for the 2010/2011 school year, which did not justify the adoption of an emergency procedure without debate.

Through the same non-parliamentary procedure, the government issued another law, freezing the salaries of public employees, including those of teaching staff (RO0912019I). Forced by budget constraints and under pressure from loan agreements with international financial institutions, the government put forward another emergency ordinance on 29 December 2009, instituting financial and budgetary austerity measures.

Provisions of emergency ordinance

In essence, the government Emergency Ordinance No. 114/29.12.2009 provides for the:

• abolition of meal tickets, gift tickets and some concessions for families of retired persons;

• extension of income tax to cover small pensions, which up until now were tax exempt;

• suspension of any budget increases for scientific research;

• reduction in the number of publicly funded jobs in primary and secondary schools, with precise numbers being stipulated for each county – to this end, the Appendix to Ordinance No. 38/2004 is to be replaced by another one.

Trade union reaction

The replacement of the latter appendix would result in the loss of a total 33,000 public jobs, of which 18,000 were to be cut with effect from 1 January 2010, and a further 15,000 are due to be cut from 1 September 2010. Responding to the news, the Education Trade Union Federation ‘Spiru Haret’ (Federaţia Sindicatelor din Învăţământ ‘Spiru Haret’, Federaţia ‘Spiru Haret’) blamed the recently appointed cabinet for ‘its attitude to education as a whole, to the teaching staff, and for its unacceptable lack of transparency’.

The federation has accused the government of gross violation of the rules of social dialogue by ignoring the Economic and Social Council (Consiliul Economic şi Social, CES) and by failing to communicate its intentions to the Social Dialogue Commission of the Ministry of Education, Research, Youth and Sports (Ministerul Educaţiei, Cercetării, Tineretului şi Sportului, MECTS) and the relevant trade union federations.

Meanwhile, on 11 January 2010, the Federation of Free Trade Unions in Education (Federaţia Sindicatelor Libere din Învăţământ, FSLI) lodged a complaint with the Ombudsman (Avocatul Poporului, AVP), claiming that the ordinance was unconstitutional. It attributed this unconstitutionality, among other things, to the government’s failure to request and obtain the opinion of the CES and to its alleged violation of issues including the right to work and social protection.

Government proposals

In an attempt to ease tensions with the social partners, the MECTS invited the leaders of the four representative trade union federations to discuss proposals for the application of the ordinance at a meeting on 5 January.

Among its measures, the government proposed:

• increasing the standard number of teaching hours for school directors and deputy directors – this would help save some 2,200 full-time jobs;

• abandoning the intention of reducing by two hours a week the standard teaching time of staff with 25 years or more of service – this would help save another 8,000 full-time jobs;

• raising the threshold for the number of pupils allowed in each class – this would spare some 1,000 full-time jobs;

• ensuring that a ceiling is implemented in the number of pupils in first, fifth and fourth form classes.

County school inspectors throughout the country were asked to examine the possibilities of optimising the school network through measures that would be jointly adopted with local administrations. These measures would then be analysed at central level and negotiated with the trade unions. However, data from the school inspectors pointed to difficulties in transposing in practice the figures regarding public jobs, as stipulated in the ordinance for each county.

Commentary

So far, the CCR has not issued any decision regarding the government’s emergency ordinance, while the trade unions do not appear to have reached agreement with the MECTS. It is possible that Romania’s demographic developments over the past two to three decades will necessitate a different distribution of the educational network in both urban and rural areas, as the network seems to be oversized in some places relative to the current school population.

These developments point to the need for a more strategic approach, based on site assessments, involving the mandatory participation of representatives from local and central administration bodies, civil society and education trade unions.

Luminiţa Chivu, Institute of National Economy, Romanian Academy