TEACHERS UNION OF SERBIA

·         Established 1991, member of Education International from its beginning -1993.

TUS started strengthening the structure of the union in 2001 – re-join of membership, creating the database with personal data for each member. The occasion was passing the Labour Law and necessity the union is representative as the partner in negotiation with the Government for educational sector. Teacher Union of Serbia is the only one union in Serbia which is representative for all level of education.

• Main results:

- Increasing salaries of employees in education to the level higher then average salaries of all employees in Serbia; (average salary of all employees is 350 Euros, in education 400 Euros)

- Equalizing work price for employees in Higher Education with work price of employees in Primary and Secondary Education;

- First Collective Agreement in Serbia was signed in education sector: for primary and Secondary Education two years ago (with other two representative teacher unions), then Collective Agreement for employees in Higher Education and the third Collective Agreement for employees in Students dormitories

- Participation in the processes of education reforms

- Defending the rights of members, information and education of members, legal protection and support for members through Solidarity Fund

- Financial support for in-service training of teachers

• Teachers Union of Serbia represents all sectors in education

(Preschool education, primary education, secondary education with vocational education, higher education and students dormitories)

Actual membership: 40 000

Paying members: 35.000

Thereof women: 73%

Thereof young teachers (up to age 35): 30%

Baseline information on membership:

1. Members in Pre-school Education            4 500

2. Members in Primary Education               15 000

3. Members in Secondary Education            7 000

4. Members in Higher Education                  5 500

5. Non- teaching members                         8 000

• Decision making bodies

School level: trade union organization with president and 3 – 5 board members

Municipality level: Federation representatives for all branches, some of them working occasionally services for school representatives

Regional level: federation representatives for all branches. Teachers Union of Serbia has its representative for regions, working for school representatives in the region

National level:

- Republic Board of Teachers Union of Serbia

- Committees for Preschool Education, for Primary and Secondary Education, for Higher Education and Student dormitories

- Executive Board (consists of presidents of Committees, President and Vice President of Republic Board)

- Assembly of Teachers Union of Serbia (meeting each four years)

Operation and decision making process

-          Committee deal with issue for its sector, making recommendations to Republic Board and decision in the sector

-          Republic Board is the main decision making body

-          Executive Board is operative body preparing programs, activities and implementation of decisions

• Negotiations

Teachers Union of Serbia negotiates alone or with other teacher unions with Government’s representatives about:

-          Salaries for all employees in all sector in education (work - price for elementary job as the base for salaries, and coefficients as measure for different work in education depending of level of education of employees and other factors)

-          Working conditions and the protection of employees in education better regulated then it is regulated in Labour Law and other laws; other benefits for employees. Signing Collective Agreements for the period of three years is the result of this process

Negotiation bodies are composed of presidents of Committees, Republic Board and Executive Board. They are appointed by Republic Board.

TUS has the representatives in the National Council for Higher Education and Commission for changing the Law of education system, Commission for reform of vocational education, Commission for preparing the Law of Preschool Education, Social – Economic Council in Serbia

• Financial structure

Membership fees collect at school/working place level (preschool education, higher education and student dormitories directly pay from account of trade union organization to municipality, city, province and national level. For primary and secondary education governmental body do the same thing on the bases of information of members from schools, as their salaries are paying directly from the central account of the Republic)

Membership fees:    1 % of net salary

50 % stays in school organization

28 – 33% local, city and province level

18 % national level

25 % from national level goes to federation level (Trade Union Centre)

Teacher union organizations in schools use half of membership fees mostly for financial support of members in situations they need help, small presents for women on the occasion of March 8 and children for a New Years.

Membership fees at municipality level are used for financing trade union centre representatives disregarding they are doing or not services to teacher union representatives.

At the national level membership fees are used for all activities of Republic Board and Committees, publishing brochures, monthly newsletters, seminars and trainings of activists.

Federative level uses 25% of national membership income for its purpose, disregarding they do not anything for educational sector.

We consider this percentage as a very high, and we are working on the realization of the idea to go out of this kind of federation.

Teachers Union of Serbia has no other regularly income aside from membership fees. We had project income in the period 2003-2006 from the cooperation with Netherlands teachers union AOb.

Regarding recruiting members: we expect that continuation of cooperation with AOb and FNV will enable realization of two projects (together with other teachers union Nezavisnost) for starting teachers and women teachers, as the most important target groups for the future members.

Why to become a member of the Union?

 “To be more secure in the insecure world!”

Collective Agreement should be implemented for all employees regardless of being members of union or not. But, as the implementation is very often the problem, members of the union have protection, support and representation even in the court asking for their rights.

Members of union know more then others what is going on about reforms, their future, possibilities for in service training etc

Trade union is the right place for teachers’ complaints (on school masters, additional obligations, social relations, students’ and parents’ behaviour…), but also the place for other workers’ complaints.

For the beginning, we listen to them (in the world where nobody is really listening) and do something for most of them (when others only are promising and mostly doing nothing)

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