Trade Unions say they do not have accurate data about number of teachers involved in meeting

57 thousand teachers, members of the Trade Union, have stated their intention to call a strike, beginning November 10. On Monday afternoon, the teachers unions did not have accurate data about the number of the protesters. “We know that many staffs from Moldova began the strike, but we cannot say exactly their number. The information will be made public at the end of this day (November 10),” Nadejda Lavric, the vice-president of the republican council of the Education and Science Trade Unions, has told Info-Prim-Neo. The deputy chief of the General Direction of Education, Youth and Sports from Chisinau, Zinaida Popescu, has stated that data are being collected. More educational institutions from Chisinau, asked by Info-Prim Neo, say they are holding classes. “We intended to begin a strike, but because not all the teachers agreed, we gave up,” the deputy master of lycee "Vasile Alecsandri”, Minodora Darie, has stated. According to the director of high school “Dante Alighieri,” Galina Caraus, classes are being unfolded. “The trade unions have misled us. Although they are trying to call the teachers to strike, they leave them organize alone and assume the possible consequences,” Caraus has explained. The high schools “Onisifor Ghibu,” “Gheorghe Asachi,” “Mircea Eliade” continue to unfold classes as well, sources from the institutions’ chancelleries have confirmed. Teachers demand a salary increase up to the minimum subsistence standard. At the beginning of September, the education trade unions picketed the Government’s headquarters for several days. Then the Cabinet endorsed an pay rise of 17% of 118 thousand budget earners. Teachers, otherwise, stated their dissatisfaction with the decision, saying that the increase was too small.