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Prague, Aug 24. (CTK) – Frozen public sector wages will rise by 10 percent from September. The change will apply across the public sector, including civil servants, trade union leaders and government officials agreed today, according to Labour Minister Marian Jurecka (KDU-CSL) speaking after the negotiations.
This pay rise will cost the Czech state CZK 1.1 billion by the end of the year.
The trade unions said the latest pay rise concerns employees of museums and galleries, actors from theatres, musicians from orchestras, cooks, cleaners, and porters at schools and healthcare facilities.
“We are glad that our pressure has a result for this year,” said CMKOS umbrella union leader Josef Stredula.
No final agreement has yet been reached on the exact pay rise for next year for employees in the public sector and state administration, but Jurecka said that it has already been agreed that the base pay of police officers, firefighters and soldiers would be increased by 10 percent in January. He said negotiations about other professions would continue.
Police officers, firefighters and social service workers saw their base pay rise by CZK 700 this year, the salaries of teachers rose by 2%, and those of healthcare workers by 6%, while the salaries of clerks, cultural employees, non-teaching school staff and other professions in the public sector were frozen.
Jurecka said today that these frozen wages, affecting some 365,000 employees, would be raised by 10% from September.
According to the available data, the public sector employed 712,106 people in the first quarter of this year. Their average gross monthly salary was 40,352 crowns, which was a rise of 2% year-on-year. Half of them earned over CZK 37,633 per month. Inflation in the Czech Republic rose by 17.5% in the 12 months to July.
Trade unionists threatened to protest due to the salaries. Nine trade unions of public sector employees have been on strike alert since June and further four unions are supporting them.
