Maybe he hopes to steal Brussel's cruiser and head out for Atlantis.
Strike!
These lines would never have been written if Hungary would be a democratic country, if this happened in Italy or in France. This would not have been a big issue, we have no huge piles of garbage in the streets that are not collected rotting away, our public transport didn’t brake down for weeks, or as consequence of the strike the country that was no longer functioning at all. This is about a 2 hours strike of teachers. Yes 2 hours, not 2 days, 2 weeks or 2 months, of 2 hours only. 2 hours the children had to be looked after in the schools despite of the strike. Yes, while on strike the work has to be cared about!
It was Ákos Hadházy, who published a short video of Péter Szijjártó, who told RTL ►HU that it would be a fundamental right in a democracy to strike. No, not the foreign minister said so, but the opposition deputy of the year 2008. Today the regime has made a strike very difficult and fought with teeth and nails against the strike, that has been announced already on December 15th, 2021. It might be a fundamental right in a democracy to strike, but in the Orbán empire it is not.
Orbán is proud about the payment of teachers, let’s have a look at the reality. Hungary knows the minimum wage for not or little educated staff, the guaranteed wage for higher educated personal. The 1st is 200 000 Ft (560 €) a month, the latter 261 700 Ft (733 €) gross. A starting teacher who has followed university education got in 2013 exactly 48.6 % more than the guaranteed wage, per January 1st, 2022 it became 19.4 % less! It is now just 10 800 Ft (30 €) gross above the minimal wage for unskilled workers. Teachers get a complement payment, at least during the 1st 6 years this is 52 000 Ft (146 €) gross (depending on education, school level, extra exams, in worst case it never changes,) but don’t get paid for overtime, preparation of lessons, and so on. This makes this starting teacher get 1 100 Ft (3 €) about the guaranteed wage: 262 800 Ft (736 €) gross. At the end remain 174 762 Ft (489 €) cash in hand, if the teacher has neither child benefits nor is married for the 1st time during the last 24 months. After 42 years teaching he has the chance to get into the highest payment level, hard to realise with a pension age of 65. A normal teacher at 2nd pedagogic level at a high school will reach Hungarian average wage (including complement payment) after 30 years teaching. A basic school teacher never will reach this level. Grocer Aldi pays starting employees in logistics and shops 362 600 (1 015 €) gross, more than a basic school teacher ever will earn. The propaganda machine is very proud of the raise of teacher payments, but G7 has the painful details ►HU.
The number of starting teachers went radically down. Only 37 % of those finishing university with the education factually start a career as teacher. With yearly 1 600 entering profession the gap between retiring and starting teachers is significant. 43 percent of the schools already have a shortage of mathematics teachers, while teachers for different sciences, IT, or foreign languages have a shortage between 25 and 33 % “only.” School psychologists, youth and family protection staff, and social educators are needed in every second school ►HU.
That teachers are not content might still be not too notable. In many countries public employees are fighting for higher wages. But in Hungary? One day after the announcement of the strike EMMI, the Human Resources Ministry had found the reason for the strike: Gyurcsány ►HU. All this would not about the situation teachers are in, but about campaigning. Teachers earning more when leaving the job and going to fill-up the shelves or to sit at the cashier of a grocery store are striking only as campaign for a party? Of course !
The regime wanted to prohibit the strike. They went to court and the court gave the teachers unions a go for the strike. EMMI again wanted to stop them with the argument that the strike would be illegal. Since by law the service in schools must go on during a strike (!) EMMI argued that all teachers must be in the schools teaching for acting legal. The judges disagreed with EMMI and decided that there has been planned enough to keep the children safe in schools during the strike. The loss of 2 hours education would not make the strike illegal. Nevertheless the EMMI threatened with consequences for the “illegal striking teachers”, since “organisation of an illegal strike can’t remain unpunished.” ►HU. The unions however rely on the court decision ►HU.
Since there are also many churches own schools the reformed church called the teachers not to strike illegally. They also have no better argument but telling that the strike is connected to the elections in April. “Faith and morality classes” must be held on Monday, so a strike would be beyond possibilities ►HU. As usually churches are working for Orbán.
Strike day arrived and things were very different in the schools across the country. Schools asked to send children to school at 10’o clock only, schools where some “solutions” were invented that teachers weren’t needed by technical reasons to give them a go, but as well schools where normal hours were given. Obviously no common handling according to the reporting of 444 ►HU. The unions reported that more than 20 000 teachers participated. Zsuzsa Szabó, chairwoman of the union PSZ, said ►HU: “we gave the children an example of how to stand up for a common cause.” About the future negotiations she said: “if the government agrees with us, there will be no strike in March, if not, we are preparing for a movement with much more breath than we needed now.” The other union PDSZ put on its facebook account pictures of striking teachers in schools all over the country ►HU.
Propaganda media decided to downplay the number of participants, bashed the opposition for the actions of the unions and called the strike illegal, although the court decided otherwise and the ministry didn’t appeal against the decision.
That the ministry and the regime propaganda machine are accusing the opposition parties has given Unity for Hungary the chance to get onto the train. Teachers, but also parents and young adults in education, who perhaps never thought to vote for the opposition were confronted with the political accusations seen the typical concerns of trade unions – and received encouragement from this very political organisation:
István Hiller (MSZP) said: “The demands of the unions are right, fair and professional, so we stand with them both individually and together and give them justice.”
Tamás Csányi (Jobbik) stated that that they want bringing teacher salaries closer to the average graduate salary
Gábo Erőss (P) spoke about the intention to abolish the bureaucratic Klebelsberg centre and the school districts. Local communities will regain their right to self-determination in maintaining their schools, but also by addressing “the problems arising from the extreme fragmentation of the pre-2011 education system.”
Endre Tóth (Momentum) added that “instead of overcrowded and ideologically defined framework curricula, schools should be provided with optional sample curricula.”
Gergely Arató (DK) said: “As long as there was a ministry in charge of education in Hungary, it was unthinkable that the leaders of the ministry would treat the striking teachers who were making legitimate wage claims [….] And today it happens”
Krisztina Hohn (LMP) wants: “don’t unnecessarily distract educators with all sorts of administrative burdens.” All quotes were collected on Nyugati Fény ►HU.
The unions closed the day with a car parade through Budapest in the afternoon, as safe alternative protest in corona times. According to telex the convoy went without problems through the city centre ►HU.
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The payment of well-educated teachers is a scandal, as is the attempt to make the strike illegal. Thanks for writing this overview.
What is striking me always is how Fideszniks can think this destruction of the education in Hungary is compatible with the “family politics” where you get money for producing children who are not taken care for later.
I saw this image on social media. My question is, which family does Orbán refers to? His own I guess.
That’s for sure
Oh, the poor man still has no savings, but after 20 years he finally paid back his mortgage (yesterday the yearly declarations were published.)
I already had a good laugh
‘What is striking me always is how Fideszniks can think this destruction of the education in Hungary is compatible with the “family politics” where you get money for producing children who are not taken care for later.’
It’s a good question. The only answer I can come up with is that ‘Fideszniks’ do not want to promote public schooling because too much of it is Leftist and Globalist, and, thus, ‘Fideszniks’ are encouraging people to home-school, if that is an option in Hungary.
Certainly homeschooling has become the rage in The US, particularly outside of the Northeast.
Not so long ago, most families homeschooling their children in the US did so because they were religious fundamentalists. Nowadays, most do so because they see the curriculum at local public schools as being antithetical to their values – from A- Z.
Home schooling is illegal in Hungary and only public and church schools are allowed. Both ownership has to use the same curriculum, completely filled with fascist propaganda. Youth now leaving school has been indoctrinated ideologically very much, but is often unable to calculate or to know the very basics of a single foreign language, some even have difficulties in writing their own language. Orbán wants to produce staff for simple factory jobs – not my interpretation, official policy since promised to investors.
Istvan, do you know the theory about stupidity from Bonhoeffer?
Here a nice YouTube link from sprouts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aeg-VxnOx3c
My first boss in Germany had a saying I never forget:
Mit Doofen diskutiere ich nicht, Gespräch zu Ende. Then he would turn around and walk away, I never forget the first time I saw him doing this.
This black hole person is stupid, it is a waste of energy to react as if she told something that makes sense. Has never been in Hungary, I guess.
Your boss was right! In my own past I always explained things to those who really wanted to understand why / why not. People who know what they are doing function better and are more satisfied with their work. Not so with those who just wanted disturb. Here I am no longer working, but have 2 possibilities. Either I block content I don’t agree with – in this case I wouldn’t be any better than the Orbán propaganda machine. Or I allow as long as not in conflict with the community rules – this very person’s comments have been edited 3 times because of violation. BTW 3 of 5 edits in total. The other 2 were because I was asked for by the very person who made the comment and in another case where personal data possibly could be endangered by providing a link that included too much information, so I shortened the link.
I have no hope about this person understanding reality, already her removed passages show that she has not only no clue about what she was writing about, but is extremely contradictory as well, so much that she is in my opinion a danger to herself. But the individual visitors to this site are according to the visitor statistics in numbers much higher than the few who are posting here. I have no idea how much these visitors are familiar with the situation in Hungary, since the very most are from other countries. So it is also a kind of additional information for those who probably could get a wrong idea what is really going on in this country by comments about home schooling for example. Alberto Brandolini said about “the BS asymmetry: the amount of energy needed to refute BS is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.” So I am not trying to educate einen Doofen, but to refute BS in benefit of the general public.
Istvan, I think you are doing a fine thing with the HN blog. I really appreciate the thoroughness with which you do your research, most of the time the choice of your topic, and the style you present, and am grateful for links to articles and sites I never visited.
You know from the HS times, that Professor Balogh most of the times left the fighting to the commenters, and only exceptionally interfered with arguments. The “best” you got was a short remark.
My comment to you was only meant to help you to save energy for the real work every day to do research and write a new article.
On the moment you seem to be like a helicopter mother always circling above her child to prevent harm. I can understand that, but if you react immediately, you could also have the effect that others, who know this idiot is writing nonsense, leave it to you to react anyway. This black hole just deserves your attention, but not your reaction every time, she will not harm the HN, because the normal readers recognize the troll. I hope for a bright future of HN and engagement of many readers.
Well, I am not Éva. I never will be her and don’t even strive into this direction. Although I have the same intention there are significant differences in Éva’s and my views as well. On HS I would have reacted the same way as here and now. And you are very wrong about the “helicopter mother”, I started since there was a call for continuing a platform and most hadn’t the technical skills to offer this. I didn’t do so to provide a daily post, which I do to keep things going on, not because I haven’t anything else to do. I am willing to let HN to live much more an independent life as Éva ever would have done with HS. I more than once called for input from others, but up to now only Pantanifan delivered a single post. I would be grateful if this would happen regularly by many different posters. So if you have something interesting to report, just email me.
It was not my intention to compare you to Éva, and of course you are free how to moderate. Sorry if you felt attacked.
Don’t worry Jan, it takes very other things to attack me! However, what I wrote about contributions is meant very seriously.
‘Orbán wants to produce staff for simple factory jobs’
Thank you for the comment, Istvan.
Glad to hear the public curriculum is fascist in Hungary. All should be taught to know their tribe well and to appreciate it above all.
Nevertheless, I am very sorry to hear that the education system is solely to produce serfs with no knowledge of the outside world.
That was the impression I had of the US public school education system, decades ago, when I was young – very very limited.
In fact, I cannot imagine how much worse education could be than what my friends were getting in public school during those days, as they were being taught principally science, math, and basic English grammar. Their history curriculum was already exclusively focused on the US, and, thus, they knew nothing of the outside the world.
Moreover, there was almost an entire lack of focus on the arts, logic, rhetoric, chess, or, really, anything which could prompt a person to learn how to think for themselves.
As to foreign language, there was often none, or, if there was some, it was only French or German to the intermediate level.
I was fortunate to go to private school, and so I was the recipient of a very well-rounded and advanced curriculae that serves me well to this day.
That said, school can only provide so much. Very important for each person continue his/her education throughtout life.
Of course you are glad that poor Hungarian children are indoctrinated by a hateful ideology instead of learning something useful. But obviously your private school in the USA has made a very bad job as well.
Let us a see a prompt reply from the MZP opposition without mixing US news into the discussion.
Get back in your black hole
Yes I agree with this analysis of the situation of primary and secondary teachers in Hungary. Some of the younger teachers simply give up on teaching in Hungary and move elsewhere in the EU particularly if they have better math and science skills that can be built on with graduate degrees. I have a distant cousin now in Germany who did that and I am sure others reading this blog have similar relatives and friends. As all of us who read Hungarian Spectrum are aware there have been legal warning strikes by teachers before, and even illegal strikes before. These have helped motivate the small insufficient increase in teachers salaries discussed in the post supported by Orban.
The situation of both public and private primary and secondary teachers in the USA is pretty mixed in terms of salary because there is no national standard for for public school teachers salaries. The truth is many people here have abandoned the profession because of the potential of Covid infections and the confusion over remote on line instruction. In many schools teachers may be instructing simultaneously both students who are connected via the internet and the kids sitting in front of them. They find it overwhelming generally. For poorer low income children remote learning has not worked well because the children have parents who are working non-remote jobs and are not home. So while the kids may have internet access and a school provided lap top they play on line games and chat instead of doing lessons with the inevitable disaster in academic outcomes.
Most studies I have seen claim the best paid and best educated teachers in the world are in Finland. There has been endless babble over here about emulating Finland and of course it has never happened. Here is one of many such calls for the USA moving in the direction of Finland https://ssir.org/articles/entry/what_us_schools_can_learn_from_finlands_approach_to_education# .
Off topic on Orban’s visit with Putin. This article https://magyarnemzet.hu/kulfold/2022/02/a-gazdasagi-kapcsolat-a-putyin-orban-talalkozo-lenyege indicates that Orban’s visit may allow for him to play the role of peace maker allowing Putin to potentially escape his dilemma relating to Ukraine if he wants to. But what is interesting to me is how little coverage RT news is currently giving to Orban’s visit to Russia, in fact Croatian President Zoran Milanovic seems to have replaced Orban as the favorite Central European leader for Putin (see https://www.rt.com/russia/547861-eu-leader-brussels-bullying-ukraine/ ).
This article appeared in the Serbain edition of Sputnik news https://rs.sputniknews.com/20220201/putin-madjarska-osigurala-stabilne-isporuke-ruskog-gasa-sa-orbanom-i-o-garancijama-bezbednosti-1133858696.html on Orban’s visit and I read it using a computerized translation program. Overall Orban played the man of peace and made no comments critical of either NATO or the USA in relationship to the situation over Ukraine. The article stated “The leaders also referred to the crisis over Ukraine, and the Hungarian Prime Minister said that none of the European leaders wanted a war. We want a peaceful solution, Orban added.” (translation via google) It should be noted that the English language edition of Sputnik news did not run this article as yet.
I suspect that the reason Orban’s visit is not being played up has to do with the Russian position on NATO and the West best expressed in a Kommersant article the other day https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5192150?from=glavnoe_1 . In this Russian article it references Istanbul Declaration of 1999 effectively arguing that Hungary and all former Central European communist nations now in NATO are violating that declaration a position which Hungary ever so reluctantly now rejects as do all the other Central European nations in NATO.
Thank you Istvan for post on school strike, let alone commenting that one foundation of a real democracy is the allowance of independent trade unions, which also have a legally guaranteed right to strike. In the present situation, the Hungarian regime is using the “legal system” to pursue a policy of law of rule vs. rule of law in threatening the teachers. Another implication of the current regime policies is the role of officially sanctioned religions in furthering the mafia regime outcomes i.e. the Reformed Church condemning trade unions and strikes.
As a past volunteer for the Reformed Church in Transylvania regarding treatment of alcoholics etc., I am appalled by the Reformed Church in Transylvania and Hungary in supporting the Hungarian regime. The only gods that the Hungarian regime worships are money and power.