November 27 (SeeNews) - The Croatian government has improved its pay offer to striking teachers, proposing an increase of 10% in four steps, prime minister Andrej Plenkovic said.
Under the proposal, the first step of the pay increase, by 3%, will take effect as of December 1 this year, Plenkovic told reporters late on Tuesday after the latest round of negotiations with trade unions. A video file with his speech was uploaded on the website of public broadcaster HRT.
The wages of education workers will be raised by a further 2% as of January 1, 2020, by 3% as of June 1 and by 2% as of October 1, Plenkovic said.
He added he hopes to see schools open already on Friday after the trade unions and their members consider in the next couple of days and possibly accept the new government proposal.
In addition, the proposal envisages an additional pay hike of 1% as of December 1, 2020 in case the regulation on job complexity coefficients in the education sector has not been adopted yet, Plenkovic said.
He said last month that the government plans to increase the salaries of all state and public servants by 6.12% next year but his announcement failed to dissuade teachers from going on strike.
School teachers in Croatia have been on a nationwide strike for a week now, demanding mainly a reform of the job complexity coefficients, saying that the current system undermines their role in society. The strike action started on October 10 across Croatia and continued in different regions in the following days on a circular basis, to turn into a nationwide action again on November 19.
Prior to the launch of the school teachers' strike in October, the government agreed on a 7% increase of salaries in the healthcare sector as of September 1, following several weeks of healthcare workers' protests across the country.