More High School Teachers Refusing to Work in Protest of Gov’t Measure

A civil disobedience movement launched by schoolteachers continued on Friday, as more and more teachers in an increasing number of schools protested a government decree issued the previous Friday that essentially makes it impossible to strike, Telex writes.

On Friday, teachers at Budapest’s Dániel Berzsenyi High School (pictured), Mihály Vörösmarty High School, Sándor Scheiber High School, Sashegy János Arany Primary School and High School, and Ferenc Földes High School in Miskolc, among others, did not perform their work duties in protest of the measure.

At Dániel Berzsenyi High School, 27 staff members chose not to work, while a further 16 teachers who could not be present in person expressed their agreement with the movement’s aims.

At Mihály Vörösmarty High School, around 20 teachers took part in the protest, which began at 9:00am.

An educator at Ferenc Földes High School in Miskolc told Telex that their protest on Friday was mostly symbolic, with only one teacher not working at the school. But from next week, similar but larger movements are planned at several more schools in the northeastern Hungarian city.

In a letter sent to Telex, 47 teachers from Sándor Scheiber High School stated:

By invoking the crisis situation, the government has made striking impossible. But the crisis situation does not apply, for example, to politicians who can hold their state of the nation speeches in front of large numbers of people not wearing masks. Teachers new to the profession have to leave the school as their salary does not provide them a livelihood, and the teaching community is aging.

At Sashegy János Arany Primary School and High School, 22 teachers did not perform their work duties on Friday, with support from another 14 teachers at the school. According to Bence Gaál, the organizer of the school’s protest, their ability to advocate for their rights has been curtailed. As he stated:

We also want to be a part of this movement. We have nothing to fear. Something needs to be done, and perhaps it will be able to forge ties between educators.

At József Eötvös High School in Budapest, 60 teachers did not perform their work duties on Friday, one of the institution’s teachers wrote on Facebook.

On Thursday, 26 teachers from Budapest’s Antal Szerb High School, 33 teachers at Blanka Teleki High School, and four teachers at the Budapest Economic Vocational Training Center’s Technical Training School in Pesterzsébet also joined the civil disobedience movement.

[Magyar Hang][Photo: Berzsenyi Dániel Gimnázium / Facebook]