The Catalan teachers once again give the Government a new challenge, throughout the week, to demand both salary improvements and improvements in the classrooms. The protest comes, minority in education, and rejected by the majority unions. The pact, far from extinguishing the embers, has fanned the flames of conflict, both with the Department and between union organizations. With this climate of tension, they hope to repeat, which emptied the classrooms and filled the streets.
Four unions – including the main ones in the sector, Ustec and Aspepc – have called a strike for the entire week, which will be territorial for the first four days, but global on Friday. The unions will try to make a first show of force on Monday in Barcelona, since the strikes affect the Baix Llobregat and Barcelonès regions on the first day. On Tuesday it is the turn of the Territorial Services of Penedès, Tarragona and Terres de l’Ebre; on Wednesday, to the Pirineu-Aran, Central Catalonia and Lleida; on Thursday, to Girona, Maresme and the two Vallès, while on Friday the strike is for all of Catalonia. Among the sectors called are public teachers, labor personnel, special education, daycare centers and educational leisure (dining room and extracurricular activities). They will be joined on Friday by the concerted party and the students, called to strike by the Union of Students of Catalan Countries (SEPC).
Last Monday, the Department signed a document four years from now, the regional supplement, which is currently about 700 euros per month, which translates into about 800 euros more this year. The pact also includes a compensation of 50 euros per night for teachers who go to camps, a beginning of the decrease in ESO ratios in high and maximum complexity centers, more resources for inclusive education (those designed by the directorates to choose the teacher who best suits their educational project). The agreement involves a cost of 2,000 euros over four years, which the Government has not specified how it will achieve.
Ustec, Aspepc, CGT and Intersindical reject the agreement as “insufficient” and accuse the signatory unions of closing the pact “through the back door” and outside the negotiating table. Likewise, the four organizations consider that “it does not resolve any of the underlying issues” of the labor conflict: “They do not recover the purchasing power lost by teachers, they do not guarantee immediate real improvements in ratios and staff and they leave too many measures pending for future developments, commissions or budgets.”
Education defended that, with the agreement, Catalan teachers would go from being the third most paid in the State to the third best paid. Figures that angered the majority of unions and they accused the Department of manipulating the figures, since it used calculations from 2029 with Catalan teachers, but did not update those of the rest of the communities.
