Dissatisfaction within the education system

Trade unions in the education system have gone on a token strike, unhappy with expected proposals to cut budget spending in their field.

Sorin Iordan, 18.06.2025, 14:00

Trade unions in the education system have gone on a token strike unhappy with expected proposals to cut budget spending in their field, which they say will affect them directly. They met education minister Daniel David on Tuesday, telling him they reject any decrease in budget spending for education that may affect the income of the teaching staff.

They want the current minimum number of teaching hours to be maintained and say raising it to 8 hours would be irresponsible, as teachers are already overburdened with other teaching and extra-curricular activities, lifelong training and administrative tasks. Teachers also fear that lowering the salary ceiling  based on which holiday and meal vouchers are granted will lead to the elimination of these rights for a significant number of employees and a drop in their purchasing power, especially in the case of young teachers, auxiliary teaching staff and the administrative staff. Trade unions are also opposed to downsizing the staff of national research and development institutes and the Romanian Academy. Last but not least, they are against the elimination of an allowance for holding the academic title of doctor, which would see a drop in incomes by around 110 euros.

The president of the Spiru Haret federation, Marius Nistor, explained how the protest action was being carried out in pre-university and higher education institutions, central university libraries and research institutes:

“People will wear badges with slogans explaining the reasons for the protest. Classes will be held as usual. Our action will not affect pupils in any way, nor the exams that are under way. However, the political class must understand that they cannot go on making a mockery of the situation in the education system. If they don’t heed our warning, they should keep in mind that it’s not impossible to relive the situation of 2023.”

The president of the Federation of Free Trade Unions in Education, Simion Hăncescu, says trade unions are not ruling out an all-out strike unless solutions are found to their requests:

“I told the president of Romania that he has all the means available to intervene if he sees that the future government goes off course and starts hurting the education system. We said that the next school year may be disrupted by protests if measures are taken that harm our colleagues.”

Last Friday, all trade unions in the education system issued a statement voicing their disagreement to possible measures to reduce the budget deficit. The education minister said at that time that the dissatisfaction of teachers is caused by a mix of irrelevant rumours and misunderstandings.