BUCHAREST -- More than 100,000 striking teachers. The education sector's three biggest unions. And starting net pay of around 2,400 lei ($520) per month, slightly over half the national average.
Romania's teachers, from kindergarten to 12th grade, have done the math.
So, despite years of complaints and months of street protests, bitter wrangling, and a two-hour walkout last week, some 100,000-150,000 teachers and tens of thousands of support staffers at elementary and high schools across the country launched their first major strike in 18 years on May 22.
The indefinite strike immediately affected millions of students and parents, threatened to disrupt final exams at thousands of high schools, and put a planned swap of prime ministers within Romania's grand coalition on hold.
Teachers blame years of neglect and stonewalling by the ruling coalition led by Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca, his imminent replacement Marcel Ciolacu, and their ally in the presidency, former physics teacher Klaus Iohannis.
The strike by teachers and support staffers will continue, they say, until they are offered "a credible solution" to long-standing demands for higher pay and other fixes to one of the EU's most poorly funded education systems.
"Mr. Ciuca is silent; President Iohannis is silent; Mr. Ciolacu promises," Simion Hancescu, leader of the Federation of Free Education Unions (FSLI), told RFE/RL's Romanian Service after failed crisis talks last week. "It can't be like that any longer. The...
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