The education system will be inventoried in order to determine the number of employees whose salary is lower than the minimum subsistence level. This was agreed in a meeting of Prime Minister Pavel Filip and representatives of the Education and Science Trade Unions Federation, who requested the Government, Parliament and the President to equalize the salaries for the first pay category and the minimum subsistence level starting with January 1, 2017, IPN reports.

According to the Government’s press service, the first pay category includes the auxiliary and non-teaching personnel. The main salary for this category is 1,000 lei, plus a series of bonuses that add up to about 700 lei. The gross average salary forecast for the first-sixth pay categories in 2017 is of 1,776 lei, while the minimum subsistence level on October 1, 2016 was 1,813 lei.

Prime Minister Pavel Filip ordered creating a joint working group that will include representatives of sector trade unions. The specialists will analyze the current situation so as to identify possible optimization and pay raise reserves.

Earlier, the Education and Science Trade Unions Federation announced that education employees will mount protests for two days, starting with January 17. Contacted by IPN, the Federation’s vice president Nadejda Lavric said a decision about the organization or suspension of protests will be taken in a meeting of the Federation’s General Council on January 12.

The National Trade Unions Confederation announced that it supports the protests of the Education and Science Trade Unions Federation scheduled for January 17-20.

Among the main demands of the education trade unionists are to increase the salaries of teaching and scientific-teaching personnel by 50% as of January 1, 2017, to raise the lump-sum paid to young education specialists when they are assigned jobs, to annually recalculate pensions for working pensioners and to increase the scholarships by 20% from January 1 this year.