After the collective agreement in the public sector, the yellow union GEW accomplishes the stunt of being dissatisfied with the result, which they themselves hastily agreed to: "The GEW BERLIN evaluates the collective agreement in the public service of the Länder critically."

Rightly so, because for educators the 2.8% increase in salary from December 2022 is far too low to even compensate for noticeable inflation. It would not have had to come so, because the labor dispute was already stalled after only three warning strike days. Really furious makes the pretended reason, the universal excuse Corona: "Only against the background of the worsening epidemic situation and the worsening situation in the educational institutions, the GEW has agreed to the present compromise."

 

Lehrerstreik 2021

What teachers really want: Smaller classes and more time for less bureaucracy

 

For teachers, who are known to earn decent salaries, the monetary gain misses the actual demands. Even more it damages the main demand of the Berlin teachers to reduce the work load among other things by smaller classes. The existing readiness to strike has already been squandered on salary demands that are unpopular among teachers. The GEW suggested only a few months ago that the coming strikes would be primarily about the „collective agreement on health“ (Tarifvertrag Gesundheit). In fact, however, only afternoon demonstrations for the same were cheekily declared as "strikes". The pressure that is exerted with it goes against zero. And as long as working conditions do not improve, the teacher shortage will remain. Because committed teachers despair of how little they can do justice to the students under the current conditions.