The Cabined and the unions reached a possible limit for negotiation of teachers’ salary increase, Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB) vice president Plamen Dimitrov said.

From now on the teachers will have to take the responsibility for the ongoing strike, after their rejection of the Cabinet’s offer from October 26 2007, he said as quoted by mediapool.bg.

More than 50 per cent of the teachers rejected last Cabinet’s offer for nearly 80 leva increase in the salaries from November 2007 and two other raises by July 2008, which would result in an average gross salary of 650 leva.

The teachers demand three increases of 20 per cent by July 2008. They went on strike on September 24 2007.

Part of the education sector employees accepted the Cabinet’s offer and the unions gave up, leaving the teachers decide whether to return to class or not, mediapool.bg said.

Dimitrov said that the Cabinet could make a step back. “Thus we could receive two increases of 10 per cent, instead of the current 20 per cent,” he said.

Protesters should have in mind that the protests could cross the tolerance limit of society, according to Dimitrov.

On October 30 2007, part of the teachers in Bulgaria returned to classes. In Sofia, some of the schools decided to resume classes for first-grade students, starting October 31 2007, mediapool.bg said.