80 percent of Polish teachers go on strike. You feel overloaded and are calling for wage increases. The game, scheduled for this week final exams of the intermediate.
The elementary school teacher Anna Zając from Warsaw is not in a position to feed for 500 Euro a month for your family. She lives after 13 years in the teaching profession along with her husband and two children still with their parents. To rent your own apartment would be too expensive. “I love my job and don’t want to give up on him, actually,” said Zając, the world thinks, but more and more often to the career change. Desperate, they presented to their Pay slips in front of the cameras of the Polish television stations. And during the rounds of talks between the teachers Union and the government they wanted to make also the education Minister’s attention. “The Minister tried to look the other way when she ran past me. But, you know, teachers ‘ salaries,” said Zając. The wage increase, which applies since January of 2019, could not more than compensate for the Inflation, she says.
A country-wide strike
Zając goes well together with your 400.000 colleagues nationwide in the strike. This means that the schools will not be closed, but that the teacher lists the Strike sign and no lessons to offer. Up to three million children and adolescents are affected. The care of the children must take the parents. Municipalities and cultural centres to provide children with additional activities, companies leave the kids with the parents coming to work, even groups of parents to arrange child care between themselves.
English teacher Marcin Zarod with his students
For thousands of students of the 9. Class is the Stress enormously, because this week should start the final exams of the intermediate. No one knows whether and when they will take place. The government calls on the teacher to show solidarity with the students and argued that, at the wrong time there is a strike. However, the tactics of the teacher is very well thought out. It is in this very hot testing phase, you get the attention of the Public.
The teachers want to earn more
It is a precedent that such a strike has taken place in Poland since the fall of communism, never. At present, the basic salaries of teachers are between 600 and 1000 euros, somewhat below the average wage. The Federation of Polish teachers (ZNP) calls for increases for different groups of Teachers from 180 to 240 euros. After months of wrangling, the offer of the government is far below the expectations of the teacher. Shortly before the start of the strike, the much smaller, and the PiS has accepted the related trade Union “solidarity” of the government’s proposed increases from 120 to 180 Euro. This should be the work week longer. Currently, teachers 18 school hours, in the future, it should be 22 to 24.
The Wage Demands
Marcin Zaród, has 23 years of experience as an English teacher and 800 Euro in the month earned, speaks of a strain of the teacher. “In our contracts, the speech is of 18 hours of work per week, but no one expects the time for preparation of lessons, checking of the class work and the conduct of the examination. I have calculated that together, my work week as a teacher is, on average, 47 hours,” says Zaród. The work he puts in by the students and the parents so valued international students projects, mostly on a volunteer basis.
Anna Zajac, a primary school teacher for 13 years – can survive a 500-Euro salary hardly
As an English translator and teacher-trainers, he earned extra money. “My wife is a teacher, too. We have two children, 11 and 14 years old. Without additional work, we would never get through the round”. He’s angry about the Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said some time ago on television that “teachers would have more free time than others, and at the same time want to earn”.
Structural change is necessary
When teachers protest, it is also about the students – and a structural change. “If Overload is the speech, then the students are affected in the same way as we teachers, if not worse. My son, the in the 7. Class, starts his lesson every day at 7.30 am and then goes up to 15.30 hrs. After that, you have a homework-Packed afternoon and evening”. The teaching system focuses on useless Knowledge and Memorizing many unimportant Details, while independent Thinking is neglected. A child who have no time for recreation and Hobbies, be exposed to the Stress and mental diseases, complains Zaród. With the strike you want to make aware of these problems.
The financial promise of the PiS
The bitterness of the teachers is great, because while their claims are rejected, the PiS-government generous to other professional groups. Jaroslaw Kaczynski wants to distribute more child benefit, announced subsidies for pensioners and tax reductions, and after the recent farmer’s protests, he promises the farmers get more money from the government Fund and the EU pot.
Also in the leisure-fortified: couple Zarod with children
But the teacher calls you to be with the children in solidarity, and not during the final exams in the strike. “Yes, although there is an unwritten rule that such professional groups such as teachers, Doctors or firefighters go on strike, so that life can work. But at some point it is enough,” teacher Zaród, in his school is now on strike.