Estonia - Teachers’ strike ends after agreement - February 29, 2024

Low pay and overtime were the main reasons why more than 10,000 teachers walked out for nine consecutive days before the seven-day strike ended on 30 January. This strike was unique in both its duration and scale. In September 2023, the largest teachers’ union, the Union of the Estonian Education Workers (EHL), demanded an average gross minimum wage of €1,950 per month for teachers in general education schools, which would have meant an 11% increase. After this was rejected by the government, the union lowered its demand to €1,835. This would have required at least €10.8 million. On 30 January, the Government made a new counter-proposal: €5.7 million would be invested in teachers’ salaries – only about half of what the union had originally demanded. Nevertheless, the union accepted the proposal stressing that for the first time, there’s now a long-term collective agreement for education workers.

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For more information, please contact Paul de Beer or Oana Ciuca, De Burcht (Scientific Bureau for the Dutch Trade Union Movement) p.t.debeer@uva.nl or the Head of communications at the ETUI, Mehmet Koksal mkoksal@etui.org. For previous full issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit https://www.etui.org/Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter or consult the archive with all articles in our database at www.cbnarchive.eu.
You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org.