Union wants cultural workers' minimum salary bumped to €2,021
Estonian Employees' Unions' Confederation and the Ministry of Culture held wage talks Tuesday. The union says the minimum salary for university-educated cultural workers should rise from €1,720 to €2,021.
Maris Rosenthal, a board member of Estonian Employees' Unions' Confederation (TALO), said talks will resume where they left off last year.
"Last year it was decided to raise the minimum salary for cultural workers, coaches and group managers from this year's budget and to allocate additional funds to increase the wage fund. That is now our starting point as we continue," Rosenthal said.
TALO is seeking a 20 percent pay raise as well as an increase in the overall wage fund.
"We are taking the average salary as our goal and will now negotiate raising the minimum salary for employees from the current €1,720 to €2,021 and of course increasing the overall wage fund so managers have the opportunity to motivate their other specialists as well," Rosenthal added.
After the meeting, Rosenthal told ERR it marked the start of negotiations and that talks will continue in April.
"We presented our five proposals that we would like to see taken into account. The minister listened and we discussed them. Since budget negotiations and wage proposals depend on the economic forecast, after hearing us out, the culture minister proposed meeting again in April," she said.
"Concrete proposals or figures have never come out of a first meeting," Rosenthal added.
She noted that since raising cultural workers' pay goes hand in hand with increasing the wage fund, the fund would need to grow by 15 percent.
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Editor: Kai Vare, Valner Väino, Marcus Turovski
