PHOTOS, VIDEO: Protesters demand pay rises for teachers in Budapest
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Several organisations held a protest demanding wage increases for teachers in front of the Interior Ministry on Saturday. The demonstration was organised by the Egységes Diákfront (United Student Front), teachers’ trade union PDSZ, Fridays For Future Hungary, Hang (Voice), ADOM Diákmozgalom (I GIVE Student Movement), Országos Közös Akarat (National Common Will) and Civil Bázis.
Noel Perlaki-Borsos of the United Student Front said that the government was “going back on its promises” and questioned the truth of the assertion that pay rises depended on “slips of paper from Brussels”.
PDSZ national board member Alexandra Pál said a 32.2 percent wage increase for teachers had been announced thanks to protestors “who knew no fear”, but added that there was “no guarantee promises would be kept”. She added that protests would continue to address not just teachers’ pay, but the need for a “radical restructuring” of the education system. A few dozen people participated at the protest. As temperatures dipped, police offered hot tea to the participants.
Is this the only quote from the Ministry of the Interior that has oversight of education in Hungary? If so then they have failed to realise that as the people tasked with employing the teachers, it is they that should be going to bat for those teachers who are underpaid. Have they been blind to the fact that in the 10 years since the last major pay rise, HU teachers have languished? In the intervening years, prices alone have risen over 50%, and yet, with one emergency act a year ago, teachers’ pay only rose by 10%. For the previous 8 years, teachers have been ask to subsidise the economy, to find ways to stretch their pay to cover the basics – or go without. But even that has been sufficient: teachers have been told to increase their hours, take larger classes, and complete more bureacracy. Other public workers like doctors and nurses have seen periodic pay increases. But today when garbage men and shelf stackers in LIDL outearn teachers, this deaf attitude from the ministry in charge communicates simply: if you don’t like it, there’s the door. This ministry is tasked by ALL of us to ensure that in the future we have valuable people to attract investment in Hungary. It should do its job and advocate for teachers, not whitewash their valid gripe as simply an act of political theatre.