Education and Science, EU – Baltic States, Latvia, Wages

As LETA was told at the trade union, LIZDA has sent the European Commission a letter informing about the situation in relation with Latvia’s 2019 budget. The union claims that a number of education and science-related laws have been ignored when drawing up this year’s budget.

First of all, the budget ignores the education law provision stipulating that a teachers’ monthly pay has to be in line with the government-approved timetable for raising teachers’ salaries. Secondly, the budget ignores the higher education law which states that government funding for higher education must reach at least 0.25% of GDP and that it has to be gradually raised to 2% of GDP. Thirdly, the budget breaches the law on scientific activity which stipulates that the annual funding for science has to reach at least 0.15% of GDP and that it has to be gradually raised until it reaches 1% of GDP.

The trade union has drawn the European Commission’s attention to these issues and called for a dialogue with the Latvian government to highlight these questions in the context of next year’s and medium-term budget.

LIZDA also informed the European Commission about a protest the trade union is planning to stage on March 20 in order to urge the government to comply with the teachers’ pay rise scheduled approved by Latvia’s previous government.

As reported, while deciding on the budget bill for 201, the Cabinet of Ministers rejected the trade union’s proposal to earmark addition funds in the budget for teachers’ wages.

In response to that, LIZDA is organizing a picket outside the Saeima building on March 20, with at least 2,500 teachers expected to join the protest. The teachers might also go on strike if their wages are not increased by September.