The SBAShaK answers Haradinaj: Statements for replacing hours are attempting pressure

Tomorrow education sector workers enter the third week of the strike. They are boycotting teaching because their demand for increased cofficiency has not been implemented.

The SBASK has chosen the strike as pressure for a law that according to them increases equality in salaries.

Ymer Ymer, the finance manager at the SBASK, tells Kosovo that the strike is stopped only if the wage bill is withdrawn.

We never sat down talking about the way we found the solution. We've been offered a written offer, separate it, left off, and we don't have a negotiation. They don't try to convince us, Government, that the offer is the last as they are saying and there's no way out. We are convinced that there are solutions within the current budget, without raising the budget, without demanding growth. We are not asking for salary increases, but we are seeking increased meritive country, of the coeficent”, he says.

And the country's prime minister, Ramush Haradinaj, has been declared several times for the strike, where, among other things, he has said these lost hours should then be compensated.

According to Ymer, such statements are intended to pressure teachers to interrupt the strike.

The claims that you will replace the summer days are statements that try to pressure teachers to interrupt. I call on institutions that don't try to break up teachers, because they don't have a theoretical chance to break them because they're determined, whether they're free or free of charge, to go to the end of making their demands”, he says.

Asked whether the clocks will be compensated, Ymer says they are teachers who say the final words on this, but who are not obliged to do so.

He even believes that it is not time to talk about it.

We should at least talk about restoring hours, and the prime minister and the minister, because we are still in the phase when we're missing days, we're in the strike phase, we're in the phase when on Monday we were supposed to start teaching normal, and on Monday there will be strikes, and that's why we're not at the stage we need to talk about what's coming in the future, we better concentrate on talking about the solution. Under the strike law, we don't have to be replaced by days. No institution in Kosovo replaces the days of the strike. We as SBASK each time we've held the strike have replaced days at the request of teachers. Even in this case, the final word has to be given to the teachers”, he says.

The SBASK has decided to continue with the strike and host the draft law hearing.

According to them, if voted in that form, they will continue on strike and ask the president not to sign the law.

We remember that the education sector started the strike on January 14th. A week later, the government has come up with an offer to increase the budget for the sector for 20m euros annually.

The SBASK declined to accept the offer and declared it does not require a raise in the salary, but in the cofficiency.

Tomorrow begins the third week of the general strike in the education sector.