Teachers’ union leader Marius Nistor announced on Wednesday that a new protest will take place on Thursday or Friday in Bucharest. He said that the unions have submitted a request to the City Hall and, depending on the City Hall’s response, the protest will be organized in one of the next days.

Nistor also said that about 20,000 people will attend the protest.

He announced that the teachers’ strike will continue until the government gives guarantees on the new pay scale and the salary of new teachers.

„The strike can end when the government comes up with a solution accepted by teachers. The longer the labor dispute drags on, the more there is a risk of postponing the national exams. Everything depends on the government. We are waiting for the government’s reaction,” Nistor said at the end of new negotiations at the Education Ministry.

He dismissed information issued Tuesday by the Education Ministry on the number of 15,000 teachers who have ended the strike, saying it is teachers who are not union members.

„There are also non-union members on strike. Most of those who withdrew (from the strike – ed.) are not union members, so the figures presented by the ministry are insignificant,” Nistor said.

It should be recalled that the major education trade union federations have demanded that, from January 2024, the salary of a junior teacher should be equivalent to the average wage in the economy (around 4,000 lei at the moment), and the rest of the salaries should be related to this threshold. In addition, teachers have asked for a 2,000 lei gross increase this year.

Instead, the government has adopted an emergency ordinance to increase by only 1,000 lei net this year (about 585 lei net).