When a union loses a consultation by 65% of votes against the agreement it has endorsed, one must ask to what extent it negotiates on behalf of its parish, affiliated or not, and what pulse it has of their feelings. This is what happened to Ustec in the teachers’ vote on the pre-agreement it had reached with the Department of Education. After the rejection, a period of unknown territory opens up, and a horizon of strikes and persistent unrest that will harm the weakest echelon of the educational system: the schoolchildren.
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The negotiation of the agreement is hampered by an original sin: the mixture of salary increases with the improvement of the system as a whole. The request for more salary has limited more transversal citizen support. The majority of Catalans understand that teachers have lost purchasing power. And they share it. Especially because they, the majority of parents of the students, have too. A study last year by the CGT itself put the average at 4% in the last five years. Although they have not gone out to block roads for that reason.
The school needs a huge investment, but also a moratorium on tension
During the negotiations, time and again the headlines from union spokespersons indicated that with a salary increase of 400 euros, the mobilizations would stop. The message that has permeated the public is that this was the main objective of the teachers. Now, in the consultation, they wanted to show that it was not. The situation of Catalan teachers will not improve even with an increase of 500 or 600 euros. Increasing the payroll is bread for today and hunger for tomorrow if the labor situation and the system as a whole do not improve. And it must improve a lot. Unlike in the past, Catalonia cannot today give lessons on the education it provides to its children.
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All actors are obliged to reconsider. Education started badly by closing an agreement with unions like UGT and CC.OO. which are important, but not representative of the sector and which, as became clear, did not gauge the feelings of their constituents, but acted due to political conditioning factors. The department continued to err, yielding each day to a higher bid from the rebellious unions. A bad negotiating example for any other sector, who now know how to act.
Our education has immense gaps at its base: the excessive use of laptops and AI that trains students skilled in technology, but devoid of critical thinking; the lack of reading, pause, and attention; or the promotion of activities focused on feelings to the detriment of learning languages and sciences. Not to mention all the casuistry that teachers face without it being their job. The result of the consultation is a warning for everyone. The school needs a huge investment, but also a moratorium on tension. The solution can come after a scheduled plan of a few months, out of the media spotlight, to calmly resolve the many diagnosed problems. Not after an agonizing negotiation on a summer night.
Read more Anti-Corruption requests the meetings of Leire Díez at the State Attorney General’s Office
