The Poverty of Educators

The strikers were threatened, blackmailed, their unions were banned from schools and school principals went around searching for strike breakers. A few years ago the quiet and humble teachers would have gone back to their classrooms. This time things are different. The government threats multiplied the number of striking schools and teachers whistled government representatives out of a meeting of their union in Belgrade. Deputy Prime Minister Slobodan Radulovic wasn’t allowed to speak at the union meeting nor did the teachers have the patience to hear Jagos Bulatovic, a leader of the state teachers union. An offended Radulovic walked out of the meeting.

Over 100,000 teachers and other school staff in Serbia found themselves on the edge of true poverty this winter. The state cheated them out of two entire salaries at the very start of the year even though their pay is virtually symbolic and falls far short of what they need to have a decent standard of living. This year the teachers' strike is motivated by their fight to survive.

Jelena Hristolodulo, leader of the Nezavisnost union whose members have been on strike since January 18, told VREME the teachers never complained about poverty in public before to keep their reputation as educators intact. "Things can’t be kept hidden any longer. If you go to class for eight years in the same skirt and blouse, see two generations graduate in the same clothes, the children see how you live. They understand everything and you can hardly teach them any values when you can’t deny that only thieves make a good living nowadays. Teachers don’t have their own apartments, they can’t pay electricity bills and the profession has been humiliated. The authorities are counting on our patience, responsibility and the inbred loyalty of civil servants. In any case, we bear a huge responsibility in leaving the children and taking to the streets."

Informed sources say the teachers are more obedient and tolerant than their pupils. They rarely protest over anything and discuss politics very cautiously. One of them said teachers are the least numerous group at the Belgrade protests. They do their job as best they can while a general apathy prevails in schools. The people VREME talked to doubt the strike will succeed or last long. All the schools are seeing their principals reinstated for four more years. The school staff have no influence on the choice of principals who are appointed at the proposal of the school board by the education minister. But, the principals can exert pressure on the teachers and bring in strike breakers. We saw that last year when teachers started their third futile strike. They received a little money and came under great pressure from their own union to return to work and moonlight in their free time.

Teachers are probably the most educated group of people on the open air markets in Yugoslavia. They don’t have the money to go into the kind of big time smuggling operations that earn big money overnight. Teachers sell smuggled Romanian underwear, deodorants, soaps and socks. Some give private lessons to survive while others play in bands at weddings. One Belgrade teacher supports her two children by tutoring two children in a family of nouveau riche. "They’re little children, one’s in second grade the other in third and I tutor them after school. It’s funny but times are hard. I don’t earn enough in school to buy food. This is better than smuggling. Of course I’m not happy but there’s not other way out. I feel terrible about everything," she said. She’s 35, has two children and lives with her parents, both retired teachers whose pensions cover the cost of electricity, rent and the phone bill. She says her children haven’t been on a holiday trip for five years.

Slavica Visnjic-Vujisic, assistant principal in New Belgrade’s 10th high school said this year’s strike was caused by accumulated dissatisfaction with salaries and the status of schools. "We were never especially well paid but this is worse then ever and people won’t go on working without pay. Let them tell us how long we won’t be paid so everyone can make up their mind. The years of uncertainty are destroying people. My colleagues have been selling their parent’s apartments, going back to living with their families to be able to eat and dress so they won’t have to come to school in rags and torn shoes."

Schools are in catastrophic condition. Teachers lack books and the schools pay for building repairs from what people donate, Visnjic-Vujisic said. "We accept those donations and risk being accused of embezzlement. An example of the care that is not being taken of education programs are the computer courses that were adopted and introduced three years ago for a four-year period. We have no computers in school for the children to work on and the education ministry hasn’t even earmarked any money for them. No one is willing to come teach those courses at this salary. Those people are experts who can get jobs for more money," she said.

the most powerful state union lent its support to the strike this time but its ratings haven’t grown among teachers who say they have been tricked several times already. The Nezavisnost union is also present but it hasn’t got the money the state union does although the number of its members is growing. There’s also a teachers initiative board, the Forum of Belgrade High Schools and the Vojvodina teachers' union. The Vojvodina union will be remembered for being received by Mira Markovic last year and being promised help which never came. Each of them has demands and negotiations with the government haven’t started.

Milan Zivkovic has been a teacher for 26 years and now has a salary of 900 dinars to support his wife and two children. He says he pays out his salary as soon as he gets it to settle his bills. He said it’s hard for him to talk of his own poverty. "I have a responsibility towards my family and I could be doing another job but it’s shameful that I can’t give my children anything from my teacher’s salary, not even pocket money. You put yourself in the background and all you think about is how to feed and clothe your children. My children are marked as teacher’s children and you don’t choose what you do in a situation like that. Over the summer I stay with family in the country and work the land. It’s hard to find farm hands to work for just 20 DEM a day but for me that’s big money. I’m not ashamed of that. I more ashamed because of the profession and because I’m embarrassed by the people who drove us into this; the people who demand that we do our best for other people’s children without being able to give our own kids anything." He added that he’s fortunate to be in a school with wonderful staff who help each other out. The optimism over this strike comes from the way all the unions have cooperated, the size of the strike and the united stand by teachers. But, "teachers have no one to turn to. Everything is falling apart. The people who should hear us, threaten us. And there’s no money."

Education minister Dragoslav Mladenovic hasn’t said anything in a long time. Or is he sticking to the promise he made last year that he won’t promise strikers anything any more. Or perhaps he’s on strike as well. Maybe he’s no longer minister since he hasn’t reacted to the fact that at least 60,000 teachers are on strike. There’s talk of a new education minister being appointed soon.

the Nezavisnost union has demanded the minister’s resignation. Jelena Hristolodulo said it’s not a question of who’s minister or who’s going to be minister but simple the introduction of the fact that the minister can be toppled.

Judging by recent reports Mladenovic is still minister. He spoke up to say that just 37.96% of Serbia’s high schools and 25.3% of elementary schools are on strike. If that is true, the situation is similar to the mess over the local election results. Mladenovic added that his ministry, in agreement with the government, will try to pay out part of December’s salaries to teachers.