European Trade Union Committee for Education

In the battle for a satisfactory collective agreement, ETUCE's German member organisations GEW has called for renewed warning strikes in many municipal childcare facilities. Hundreds of child carers, educators and social workers join this action only one day before the next round of collective pay negotiations with the local government employers. The education union asks for a revaluation of the duties of the educators in order to  achieve a better pay scale grouping for them and consequently also fairer wages.

The negotiations run apart from the regular wage agreement for the municipalities, which was agreed on already last year for a two-year-period. Since the job specification of educators has changed significantly in the last decade, a revaluation of educators remuneration compared to other public sector jobs is overdue.

However,  because the focus is on pay negotiations, it is not just a case of better wages. In its heart, it is indeed also about recognition and the social status of this occupational group whose work and commitment has often been underrated. GEW has pointed out for a while that the professional image needed to be enhanced.  The recent campaign "Educators deserve more! For a better EGO." addresses this problem. As part of this campaign, GEW produced a short movie with the attempt to change the public's way of thinking about this topic and thus to contribute to a more accurate image of the work in day-care centres for children.

Now, tomorrow's negotiations are eagerly anticipated. It must be assumed that difficult discussions have to be faced. Apparently, the employers have still not presented any offer.

Find more information at: https://www.gew.de/Kita.html and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pF3_4X9XzM