Kosovo Teachers End Three-Week Pay Strike

Kosovo assembly speaker Kadri Veseli on Friday said the teaching union had agreed to call off a three-week strike over pay, after hearing that teachers' wages would go up under the draft law on salaries, which parliament was due to adopt on Saturday.

Veseli made the announcement at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj and the union president, without giving further details about the increase.

"I am happy that Kosovo students from Monday will return to school. All employees of the education system have had a raise in their salaries, and ... we will keep our promises," he said.

"Salaries have been increased in all other [public] sectors, including the police, medical workers, the public administration, artists, municipal assemblies, pensioners and all other workers," Veseli added.

"Tomorrow [Saturday] we will approve the bill on salaries, which will increase pay for more than 70,000 [public sector] employees," Veseli continued.

SBASHK union president Rrahman Jasharaj hailed the agreement and confirmed that the second semester of the school year would begin next week. "The deal is close to what we wanted. The second semester begins on Monday," Jasharaj said.

As BIRN has reported, Kosovo has been hit by an escalating wave of strikes, prompted by the new law on salaries proposed by the government and awaiting debate in the Assembly.

There is no information as yet about whether surgeons, medical staff and municipal workers will continue their strikes or not.

The current public-sector pay system is widely considered fragmented, inconsistent and incoherent.

Current salaries are regulated by different laws and mainly by sub-legal regulations, and their legal basis in most cases...