A child goes to school on the first day of the school year, full of expectations for the lessons that lie ahead. The child asks a question of the teacher but gets only one reply: a pointed finger at the blackboard where a sign says: “strike”.

This is what will happen on September 15, according to Yanka Takeva, chairperson of the Bulgarian Teachers’ Union (BTU). A tale of Takeva and a teachers’ strike is hardly new for Bulgaria. Every year with the approach of the first school day, September 15, teachers organised by Takeva threaten to go on strike, demanding a salary increase. A succession of governments has grown used to this, customarily responding by saying that there is too little money in the Budget. This time, however, things are a bit different. Different enough for Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev to have held a special news conference on the subject on a Sunday September 9, accompanied by Finance Minister Plamen Oresharski and Education Minister Daniel Vulchev.

If there is one thing that all Bulgarians agree on, it is that teachers, together with medical staff, are the most underpaid public professionals in the country. According to BTU, a teacher in a Bulgarian high school can expect to earn no more than 350 leva a month, and then only if the teacher has at least five years of experience. This, according to BTU, was more than enough reason to make all young teachers want to leave their jobs. For example, after July 1 this year the people employed in various ministries and government bodies have a starting salary between 314 leva and 664 leva, according to State Administration Ministry data.

Here lies the big problem. Both the Government and the BTU agree that there is an urgent need for a salary increase. On September 9, Stanishev said: “The Government is ready to increase teachers incomes in an accelerated manner ahead of inflation as of January 1 next year.” What Stanishev said revealed ambitious plans for improving teachers’ social status.

“The planned accelerated increase plus the additional remuneration that teachers get in the course of the year, will result in relative approximation of the two types of income. Besides, a second pillar of differentiated payment is expected to be introduced as of January 1 2008 that would make it possible for teachers’ disposable income to exceed 560 leva a month,” Stanishev said. The Government plans to stick to this policy through 2008 and 2009 so that, by the end of the Government’s term, the best teachers are expected to draw more than 920 leva a month, Stanishev said.

“This increase is higher compared with the one in the other sectors, but it has been prompted by the understanding that steps have to be made so as to guarantee higher quality of education,” he said.

BTU’s immediate response was that this was not satisfactory and that the strike would happen on September 15. It will start with a one-hour protest on September 15, and as of September 24, teachers will simply stop working. The only way to avoid this, according to BTU, is nothing less than a 100 per cent increase of salaries as of October 1. Until September 24, teachers will go to their work places but will not enter the classrooms.

Unlike previous years, teachers might actually carry out their threat. The reason is the example of the drivers of Sofia Public Transport company, who, a week before the May 20 MEP elections, blocked the city demanding higher salaries, and got them. This time the teachers have on their side the October 28 municipal elections and it seems they have decided to follow the same pattern. Stansihev’s news conference is the proof that the Government has taken teachers’ threats seriously.

Even Vulchev linked BTU’s demands to the elections. On September 11, speaking to national commercial station Nova Televisia, Vulchev said that each municipality had its own budget for education but mayors prefered to use it for road repairs rather than raising teachers’ pay.

Vulchev had something to say about Takeva as well.

“Until now, we have been speaking only with the BTU and I do not think that it represents all Bulgarian teachers. I want to hear the teachers and to persuade them, or at least try to let them hear what we are offering,” Vulchev said. For some this might sound as the old Roman principle “divida et impera” (divide and conquer) but it is true that for the past 10 years, Takeva has been the person who has made threat after threat and not achieved much.

Besides wondering what to do with their children if teachers go on strike, parents have something else to worry about. With most consumer prices going up this year, the money a parent must spend on the first school day has increased as well. A complete set of textbooks for a fifth grader can be bought at Sofia’s Slaveikov Square book market for no less than 350 leva. A further 200 leva will be needed for clothes and other school accessories. So the first school day could cost about 500 leva a family with one child. Takeva’s demands included nothing about helping parents with their expenses, as in other EU countries where family spending on education attracts tax breaks.

The most popular female to lead a trade union in Bulgaria, Yanka Takeva has lived a life full of ambition. Takeva was born in 1947 in a village near Borovets. Giving the poor financial status of teachers in Bulgaria, Takeva has always said that she does not need to rely on her teacher’s salary, because she has other incomes. The proof is her house in the Dragalevsti residential area in Sofia. In fact, after becoming deputy leader of the Bulgarian Teachers’ Union in 1990, and later in 1994 its leader, Takeva left teaching behind. Few, if any people, have recollections of Takeva as a teacher. It is public knowledge that she has a degree in education, a second degree in human resources and a third degree in budget management.

Takeva started her teaching career during the communist era. In 1974, she started working in Dragalevtsi’s home for children born out of wedlock, where she spent 18 years. In 1987, Takeva took a job within the administration of Sofia’s Krasna Polyana neighbourhood as an “expert”, where she stayed until 1990.

Becoming BTU leader made Takeva famous. She says that one of her successes was creation of the special teachers’ pension fund.

That there are more than 100 000 teachers in Bulgaria is a good asset for a trade union when it comes to collecting membership fees, some of her opponents have claimed through the years. In the past five years, Takeva made the news several times, showing no desire to behave as befits the leader of the most underprivileged professional group in Bulgaria. First she found the money to fly to Washington and speak to the International Monetary Fund. The trip was announced as part of a private visit to one of her two daughters living in the US.

Another surprise was Takeva’s second place on the list of the little known party Nova Bulgaria in the May 20 MEP elections. She got a total of zero votes. Leader of the list was Krastyo Petkov, a former MP for Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev’s Bulgarian Socialist Party.

Besides calling for strikes, Takeva is known for her other original ideas, such as teachers giving top marks to all students as a means of protest. Fortunately this form of protest was limited to only one school, the French Language School in Sofia.