Teachers' Trade Union Reaches Agreement with Govt
Last night, Slovenia's biggest trade union confederation, the ZSSS, said it would back away from its referendum plans if the National Assembly endorses the demands that the government said yes to.
SVIZ decided today that if the government excludes all provisions on standards in education from the omnibus bill, as agreed, the trade union will not challenge the bill in a referendum.
However, if the National Assembly passes a version of the act that includes the contentious provisions, SVIZ will file signatures to launch referendum procedures on Monday, SVIZ secretary-general Branimir Štrukelj said.
The government gave in to SVIZ's demands against lowering standards in education during the final round of talks between the public sector trade unions and the government on Monday.
Štrukelj said that SVIZ had no guarantee that the government would indeed respect the agreement, however "there are certain signals indicating that the government will respect it". Standards in education are now to be discussed in the framework of talks on the social agreement.
Only yesterday, Labour Minister Andrej Vizjak was not very optimistic that a consensus could be reached with the public sector trade union negotiation team by Thursday when the bill is to be discussed by the National Assembly. SVIZ remains critical of the bill and opposes planned public sector pay cuts. Štrukelj said however that they will not launch referendum procedures over these measures.
The trade union moreover formed additional demands today, which Štrukelj labelled as "marginal". Among other things, three more days of annual leave should be granted to teachers, who are mothers of children with special needs.Štrukelj moreover said that tomorrow's meeting with the government must clarify whether public sector pay cuts envisaged are to be linear or performed in line with a combined system.
SVIZ is the first public sector trade union to promise that it will not challenge the omnibus bill in a referendum, if the government respects their agreement. The confederation of public sector trade unions, KSJS, also headed by Štrukelj, has yet to say whether they would support the government's final proposal that was drafted yesterday.
Apart from SVIZ, other public sector trade unions also held sessions today to debate whether to endorse yesterday's government proposal, and it seems likely that most of them will sign an agreement with the government tomorrow. Two health care trade unions decided to endorse the agreement if the government gives up on its plans to cut holiday allowance. The customs officials will endorse it as well, and so will the doctors' trade union. One of the two police trade unions has said that it remains undecided