More than 100 EHU staff members can be fired

Contracts of almost 120 teachers of the European Humanities University (EHU) expire on October 1.

They are not sure their contracts will be prolonged, representatives of the university trade union say.

“The contracts expire on September 30. They were not prolonged with active participants [of the protests – BNS], Irina Judina Yudzina, the head of the Trade Union of Employees that represents the EHU academic staff, told BNS.

According to her, the university rehired about 70 staff members. Judina says the future of 120 teachers remains unknown from the beginning of the academic year in October. According to her, a great part of those who will be fired are citizens of Belarus, ru.delfi.lt writes.

The staff members, whose contracts were not prolonged, prepare a lawsuit. They also want to dispute the practice of signing service contracts, which do not give any social guarantees to employees, instead of employment contracts.

EHU vice-rector for development and communications Daruis Udrys says contracts were signed with 707 former staff members and 15 teachers work on other conditions.

He says the university plans to offer teachers 26 vacancies on the ground of individual activity contracts, but admits the remaining staff members won't be hired.

“We thought we would return to Belarus soon, but it turned out that we would remain in Lithuania for some time, so we need to solve the question of attendance. […] We review our programmes, so we cannot undertake obligations for a term of more than a year in relation to all members of the academic staff,” he said.

EHU worked in Belarus until 2004, when it had to stop its work in the country under pressure form the regime. It has been working in Vilnius since 2005. The majority of students are Belarusians.