European Trade Union Committee for Education

Over 600,000 education workers participated in the strike in Italy on 5 May 2015. As a result, the government met the trade unions, among them the three ETUCE member organisations, but decided to go on with the approval procedures of a draft law to reform the education staff's working conditions. In practice, this would reduce education workers' rights and increase their workload without a corresponding wage increase.

For the last three days, teachers have been demonstrating again and expressing their disagreement in front of the Italian parliament and elsewhere in the country. According to the ETUCE member organisation UIL Scuola, teachers have also planned to go on strike during all students' final evaluation activities. Meanwhile, the government has added more measures to the draft law in order to further reduce teachers' rights. One of the measures states that teachers' performance and their right to pay rise would be assessed by parents and students together with the school manager.

ETUCE has earlier supported the demands of its Italian member organisations. ETUCE European Director Martin Rømer said that the Italian education social partners should immediately gather around the negotiation table to work together on solutions which will lead to better quality in the Italian education system.