Croatia Meets Teacher Demands to Bring Nationwide Strike to End

(Bloomberg) -- The Croatian government reached a wage agreement with teachers, ending a nationwide strike that shut classrooms for 16 school days and easing pressure on the ruling party before the Dec. 22 presidential election.

The government agreed to raise base salaries by a cumulative multiple of 6% through January 2021, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said Monday. The raise will be funded by canceling a previously planned 1 percentage-point cut to value-added tax.

“We heard and understood the message from teachers, and we have reached a compromise,” Plenkovic said. “The most important thing is to get students back to school from tomorrow.”

Plenkovic also said the government plans a review of the entire public-sector wage system to make it “more balanced.”

The European Union’s newest member has run balanced budgets since 2017 and cut public debt by 10 percentage points in the same period. The median net wage for teachers is estimated at above 7,000 kuna ($1,035), versus about 5,500 kuna overall.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jasmina Kuzmanovic in Zagreb at jkuzmanovic@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Andrea Dudik at adudik@bloomberg.net, Michael Winfrey, Andras Gergely

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