De Wever confirms delayed wage indexing for teachers and broader public sector
Prime minister Bart De Wever has confirmed that wage indexation for public sector workers, including teachers, will be delayed by three months instead of the current two. The move is part of a broader effort by the federal government to contain public spending and bring clarity to a fragmented system of indexation timelines. He spoke about this during an interview with VRT.
“For everyone who works in the public sector, the index will be paid after three months,” De Wever told VRT in an interview marking his first 100 days in office. The decision had already been made at Easter for most government employees, but whether it applied to Flemish teachers remained unclear until now.
"That doesn’t seem to me to be the end of the world"
“In very large parts of the private sector, the index is calculated once a year,” De Wever said. “Is it the end of the world now that we tell the public sector: ‘everything in three months’? We’re harmonising that — that doesn’t seem to me to be the end of the world.”
The reform follows an earlier decision to delay indexation of social benefits and pensions from one month to three. De Wever justifies the policy as necessary to clean up what he describes as an “Augias stable”, a reference to the dire state of public finances.
“If everyone says, ‘we have to cut back, we have a terrible budget, but you can’t ask me for anything,’ then it won’t work,” he said, noting that the principle applies even to privileged groups such as magistrates. “Half of the magistrates have a pension of around 7,500 EUR. If you ask those people: ‘can you perhaps drop part of your index — 36 euros instead of 140?’ And then the world collapses? Then you reach the limit of what I can understand.”
Response to ongoing strikes
Despite expected resistance, De Wever signalled little willingness to reverse course in response to strikes. “That’s what it really comes down to,” he said, while acknowledging that “there is, of course, room for social consultation.”
Looking ahead, De Wever warned that even a full five-year term would not be enough to complete the turnaround. “Another legislature will have to be added before the Titanic is lifted off the bottom... That will take years.”
Prime minister Bart De Wever ©BELGA PHOTO JAMES ARTHUR GEKIERE
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