For a United Front of Croatian Education Workers!

Leaflet distributed by our comrades on the occasion of a school workers’ struggle in Croatia.

Workers can only expect an improvement in their material conditions from the Croatian state if they exert strong pressure on it.

This is clear to anyone who has had the opportunity to work in the public sector, and it should also be clear to workers in the private sector. After all, a boss is a boss, whether it’s an individual, a corporation, or the state itself.

In recent months, we have once again witnessed the Croatian state’s hostile attitude toward education workers.

From kindergartens to universities, the demands of education workers can only be seen as excessive by the most arrogant representatives of capital and the ruling class. From Minister Fuchs to Prime Minister Plenković, we can immediately count the entire leadership of the Republic of Croatia among them.

What are the education workers demanding?

In schools and secondary institutions, they demand an increase in base salary and salary coefficients, as well as the rejection of “on-the-job evaluations,” which would certainly be used as a form of pressure on workers.

In the preschool system, the demands are even less ambitious.

They simply want the enforcement of existing laws and pedagogical standards, and the equalization of kindergarten wages with those in primary schools.

Unions tend to frame the issue of coefficients in moral terms.

They compare them to other jobs in the public and state sectors, highlighting the key role education plays in shaping and training the younger generations.

Prime Minister Andrej Plenković responded by saying he saw through the unions’ lies and that in the end “it’s all about material things, about money.”

We should clearly respond to Plenković:

so what?

Of course it’s about material things: you can’t live off air and good vibes!

Let him try it himself if material things don’t matter to him.

The attitude toward kindergarten workers is even more hypocritical.

After various associations and unions organized a protest, the Ministry decided to support the protesters!

Of course, only in words!

Fuchs and his gang “warned” the kindergarten administrators (i.e., the local authorities) that they are still obligated to follow the provisions on equal pay in preschool and school education.

Has the Croatian government decided to do anything concrete?

Perhaps they’ve provided funding for wage parity and new hires?

Of course not! Nor should we expect them to without strong and ongoing pressure from below.

This pressure must not be based on moralistic arguments about education jobs, as the unions are known to do, but on a clear and united struggle for the material rights of the category.

The struggle must not rely on the support of a vague “public opinion,” which may seem particularly tempting in the weeks before the local elections [scheduled for May 2025].

“Public opinion” is delivered by the media into the hands of capital and its political representatives.

It will certainly not be on our side, nor should we count on it.

We can only laugh at every article about “public sector parasites” and remind ourselves who lives by their labor, and who lives off our exploitation.

We must instead organize on a class basis.

All public and private sector workers ultimately share the same material interests, no matter what Index, Jutarnji, or social media propaganda tell us.

But we must start from reality,

from the unity of educators at all levels of the education system and in all workplaces, from teachers to janitors.

We must undertake a joint struggle and strike, and then work to unite into a single fighting union—sectoral and, ultimately, class-based—for all workers.

We must not rely on NGOs or believe the lies of politicians.

Our only strength is solidarity.