Government: Teachers’ planned strike illegal

Budapest, March 17 (MTI) – Effective regulations do not ensure “legal conditions for a legitimate strike”, László Palkovics, the state secretary in charge of education, said in response to a recent call by protesting teachers for a one-hour strike action on March 30.

The state secretary insisted that the interests of “children, teachers, and schools” can only be served through “dialogue and joint efforts” in the government-initiated public education roundtable.

Palkovics said that the government was in consultations with the strike committee of teacher union PSZ and added that “there are some open issues”.

On Tuesday, István Pukli, a headmaster who has become the symbolic leader of Hungary’s teacher protest movement, announced the strike plan before tens of thousands of demonstrators assembled in Kossuth Square. He said the one-hour strike would be held unless leaders of the country apologised to teachers for ill-advised measures taken in the past six years.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in response on Wednesday, that he took the teachers’ ultimatum as a joke.

Photo: MTI

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters